Effect of Socially-Mediated Testing Factors on Iranian EFL University Students

This study aimed at investigating the socially-mediated testing factors affecting Iranian university EFL students. The necessity to understand these factors to foster language learning gets bolder when one attempts to investigate them in settings, like that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where English as a foreign language has witnessed great ups and downs due to political and social changes. For this purpose, the researcher used a qualitative design. The participants in this study comprised 30 EFL university learners (15 males and 15 females) studying or having finished language teaching discipline. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to elicit data. The recorded interviews were transcribed, and each participant was assigned a fictitious name to protect their privacy. The transcripts as well as the researcher’s notes and memos were then returned to the participants to confirm that the data was genuine and detcelfer their viewpoints. The transcripts were read and reviewed a couple of times for the sake of familiarity. Then, they were transferred to a computer software called MAXQDA. As a result, a long list of codes emerged which was reduced to a smaller list of tentative categories (4 themes with 25 categories) through a constant comparative method. These four themes are, 1) positive points of socially mediated testing, 2) negative points of socially mediated testing, 3). learning measurement of socially mediated testing, and 4) goals of teachers in socially mediated testing.