Het Oordeel Van Deskundigen Over Gespreksvaardigheid: Validatie van een nieuw begrip ten behoeve van toetsontwikkeling

Recently new objectives have been defined for foreign language teaching in Dutch secondary education. New objectives require new tests; they are one of the means to realize changes in education.A research project was set up to develop a prototype of a speaking proficiency test. The purpose of the test will be to measure the learner's ability to interact effectively in various real-life situations. In this project, Utrecht University and the National Institute of Educational Measurement are working together, making use of each other's know-how in the field of research and test construction.The first stage of the project was to develop a theoretical framework for oral interaction ability. Elements from various disciplines are represented in this framework, such as the parameters of the communicative situation and types of interaction. By means of this framework the learner's aimed language behavior can be analyzed and described.The theoretical framework has been validated by expert judgement. To organize the collecting of the experts judgements, the Delphi technique (Harrell, 1978) was used.In a first round the experts were asked to comment on different aspects of the framework. They did so by answering an open-ended questionnaire. The reactions of the members of the panel were analyzed and summarized. A second questionnaire with reformulated statements was developed and sent to the panel members, together with a brochure with summaries of the answers of all the panel members on the first questionnaire. In the second round the experts were asked to express their agreement or disagreement with the new statements. The outcome was a high degree of agreement on the main issues of the framework.The framework has been modified according to the reactions of the panel members in the first and second round. In this paper the original and the revised versions of the framework for oral interaction are presented and a description of the Delphi procedure is given.