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FOCUS ONa way of being or sense of selfachieved through cooperatively
making decisions about learning,
through access to both internaland external resources. The ability
to exercise autonomy depends onparticulardispositions
andpredispositions and fluctuatesaccording to circumstances. (p. 11)“Taking the Elephant by theTusks”: A Review of Assessment
and Autonomy in Language
Learning , Edited by Carol
Everhard and Linda Murphy,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
Alison Stewart
Gakushuin University“Assessment is very often the elephant inthe room that everyone can see but nobody
wants to mention,” writes Philip Benson in
the Foreword to Assessment and Autonomy in
Language Learning. This new anthology,
edited and introduced by Carol Everhard
and Linda Murphy (2015) “takes theelephant by the tusks” (p. viii). Six chaptersof innovative theory-elaboration andresearch, together with an introduction by
the editors and an epilogue by Sara Cotterall
and Diane Malcolm, turn the spotlight on
the difficult—and hence often ignored—
relationship between assessment andautonomy. It has become widely accepted(especially in our SIG) that autonomy is aprerequisite for language learning. But isautonomy something that can be, or shouldbe measured or assessed? Furthermore, if
learner autonomy means that learners havecontrol of all aspects of the learning process,how does that square with the requirement
in most schools and universities thatlearners be assessed by their teachers? Theseare important questions for anyone whoworks in an educational institution—i.e., forall of us—to consider, and this book canserve as a very useful starting point forreflection, discussion, and, perhaps, newresearch and practice.
The chapters begin with Everhard’s wideranging review of the autonomy-assessment
relationship in the learner autonomy
literature. Admitting that it is amultidimensional construct, which makes it
difficult to measure, she nevertheless offers
a working definition of autonomy as
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Far more elaborate than Holec’s famousdefinition of autonomy as “the ability totake charge of one’s own learning” (1981, p.
3), this formulation takes account of more
recent avenues of autonomy research suchas learner identity, cooperative learning, andthe effect of social context. It remains,
however, true to Holec’s definition in its
focus on the learner, their own sense of self,
and their ability to take action or makedecisions or change according to different
circumstances. By learning to reflect andassess themselves, Everhard concludes,
learners become more autonomous in waysthat benefit all areas of their lives.
The following three chapters take up thechallenge of assessing autonomy itself. The
first of these three very different chapters isby Fumiko Murase, who developed aquestionnaire in order to gain a quantitative
measure of learner autonomy of university
students in Japan. The Measuring
Instrument for Learner Autonomy (MILLA)
is a Likert-scale questionnaire based on afour-dimensional model of autonomy(technical, psychological, political and socialcultural). With the final version of thequestionnaire comprising 113 test items
distributed to 1517 students from 18
universities, Murase used the data she
obtained to test the validity and reliability ofthe model, as well as to gain a better
understanding of the construct of autonomy
itself. What is intriguing about this study isthe finding that there is a strong correlation
between the psychological and politicaldimensions of autonomy, and Murase’s
decision to respecify them as a single subdimension. My intuitive sense is that these
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would be fascinated to see further
exploration of what this correlation mightmean.
The second chapter, “Assessing Learner
Autonomy: A Dynamic Model” by Maria
Giovanna Tassinari introduces a “dynamicand dialogical approach” to the assessmentof autonomy. Like Murase, Tassinaripresents her own model of autonomy,
although whereas Murase’s model expresses
what autonomy is, Tassinari’s is comprisedof interconnected “components” that
describe what learners do (e.g., managing myown learning, cooperating, evaluating,planning, etc.). These components are built
into descriptors, which are derived fromprevious developed materials on strategies
and autonomy, and which are listed in a task
sheet that invites learners to evaluate theirskill or willingness to learn a skill within any
particular component. After a trial
investigation of the model, a procedure wasadopted at the author's university whereby
learners advance through a series of steps inwhich they reflect on their experiences anduse the assessment sheets to focus oncomponents of the autonomy model thatthey would like to work on first on theirown and subsequently in a session with anadvisor.
The third chapter, “Assessment as Learner
Autonomy” by Lucy Cooker offers yet
another model of learner autonomy, one
which, like Murase’s, also derives fromstatistical analysis. Q Methodology, a researchmethod that combines subjective views ofindividuals through card sorting withstatistical factor analysis, is used to identify
six “modes” of autonomy, and these modes
can then be used in a self-assessment
exercise that enables learners to identify
their own autonomy mode and the strengths
and weaknesses within that mode, as well as
to consider alternatives. Like Tassinari’s
model, the modes of autonomy developed
by Cooker are intended for formative selfassessment purposes as a tool of reflection
and guide to decision-making about ongoing
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Volume 24 Issue 1 May 2017self-development. The methods by whichthese assessment tools were created and theuses to which the authors have put themoffer ample food for thought, and better
still, the tools themselves—Murase’sMILLA questionnaire, Tassinari’s dynamic,
dialogic checklist, and Cooker’s modes ofautonomy are provided in appendixes or
via links for the reader to copy or
download and try out for themselves.
Following these chapters come two chaptersthat put a different spin on the relationshipbetween assessment and autonomy. Rather
than trying to measure autonomy, thesechapters describe practices where the task ofassessment in a formal educational context
is given to, or shared with the learners. In“Peer- and Self-assessment of Oral Skills in
Higher Education,” Everhard presents a
study in which assessment of oral skills in a
general EFL course was triangulated
between teachers, peers and individual
students’
self-assessment.
Everhard’s
carefully designed study revealed that there
was remarkable consistency among the threedifferent kinds of assessment, although thediscrepancy of higher peer assessment in
one group suggests that group dynamics
might disrupt the criteria that is more
successfully used for assessment elsewhere.
Finally, in “Autonomy in Assessment,”
Linda Murphy describes an experimentconducted with materials based on Kolb’s
learning cycle that were intended to help
learners of French succeed in tutor-assessedassignments. The materials consisted of askills audit, a self-assessment sheet, areflection sheet, a tips sheet, and a skills
sheet, all of which gave learners guidance on
how to complete them. Tutors were asked
to support this scheme by delivering thematerials to their students and by explaining
their function and hoped for benefits, but
the scheme was entirely voluntary for bothtutors and learners. An investigation into thereactions of tutors and learners wasfollowed up by interviews with tutors andlearners selected from among those who
answered positively and those who had
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answered negatively. Needless to say, bothtutors and students who had answered
positively found that they were beneficial
not only in terms of enhancing learning, butalso in improving communication between
tutors and students. An encouraging finding,you might think, except that only one thirdof the students opted to do the selfassessments; two-thirds did not bother.
For me, this points to the heart of theproblem of juxtaposing assessment andautonomy. The students in Murphy’s study
were given the autonomy to choose whether
or not to undertake the guided selfassessment exercise that was provided,
something that was intended, and indeed
proved to be beneficial for their learningand their academic success, and the majorityof the students exercised their autonomy bychoosing not to do it. This is a quite
different view of autonomy, however, to theone that tends to prevail throughout thiscollection. Rather than the learners’
capacities and attitudes, this view focuses on
the political dimension of autonomy
whereby institutions, more than learner
psychologies, determine the extent to which
students can be autonomous.
The chapters in this book are written fromthe perspective of a range of different
geographical and educational contexts,
including self-access centres and mainstream
language classes. Self-access centres,
designed to maximise the learner’s control
over the learning process, are in this respectvery different to compulsory general English
language classes in a university curriculum.
As a teacher working in the latter type of
educational context, I have to grade mystudents, and although, like Everhard, I’ve
tried giving responsibility for assessment tostudents or sharing it with them, it neverfeels comfortable. I do believe in learnerautonomy, I talk about it in my classes, andI try to give students opportunities to takecontrol over various aspects of the learning
process. But then grading them at the end ofthe course feels like I’ve just snatched

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Volume 24 Issue 1 May 2017control back again. It feels like a violation ofautonomy.
There is plenty to admire in this book andsome good things to take away from it too. I
was particularly impressed with the threetheory-building chapters and now intend totryout
Murase’sMILLA
questionnaire, Tassinari’s dynamic anddialogic autonomy task-sheet,
andCooker’s“modesof autonomy”
materials. But I also liked the twochapters describing assessment-sharing
practices, since this is where the subject andits inherent problems came most vividly tolife. If there is anything to criticise, it is that,to my mind, there is too little account takenof the political dimension of autonomy.
Autonomy may very well be a multidimensional construct, but assessment,
when it is done by someone other than thelearner, is fundamentally a political act. But
there is much more to explore about therelationship between assessment andautonomy. This book sets an important
precedent in highlighting the need to do so.
Reference
Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and foreign
language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press
for Council of Europe.
Author correspondence:<Email> stewart1411@gmail.com
Assessment and Autonomy
in Language Learning,(2015) Edited by Carol
Everhard and Linda
Murphy, Basingstoke,
UK: Palgrave Macmillan,
2015, 175 pp., ISBN:
978-1-137-41437-3
For more information:
http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9781137
414373
Have you come across an interesting read? Pleaseshare your discoveries with the LD community bysending your review tolearninglearning.editor@gmail.com .
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