Changes in English-language exam inhibit access of foreign students to U.S. universities

Academe, May/Jun 1999

IN FEBRUARY, FOLLOWING A worldwide protest among academics, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) suspended computer administration of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) in some parts of Africa. Educators who deal with foreign students worry that computerization, together with rising exam fees, may limit the access of foreign students to U.S. universities, at least in the short term.

ETS, based in Princeton, New Jersey, is the world's largest private institution to measure students' educational achievement. The service administers 9 million tests each year in the United States and abroad. In July 1998, it introduced a computer-based version of the TOEFL, which U.S. colleges and universities use to assess the Englishlanguage skills of applicants from foreign countries. The plan was to discontinue the paper version of the TOEFL as soon as the computer exam was up and running in a country. In Africa, ETS relied on Sylvan Learning Centers and temporary mobile test units to administer its computerized tests.

Criticism that began months ago over the shift to computer-based testing in Africa turned into public protest in January, when H-Net, an online network of humanities and social-science scholars, issued a statement on the Internet. The statement noted that permanent test centers exist in only fourteen of the forty-six sub-Saharan African countries and that mobile centers had not been made available in all countries. Moreover, the statement said, some countries served by the mobile centers offered only one test each year, and travel to the centers could be next to impossible for prospective test takers. With the advent of computerization, the number of students taking the TOEFL in subSaharan Africa declined precipitously.

Mark Kornbluh, director of H-Net, reports that he received immediate replies from scholars around the world after issuing the Internet statement; ETS and TOEFL officials also contacted him, he says. Within two weeks of the statement's posting, ETS had announced that it would abandon mobile administration of the TOEFL in Africa and offer a paper-and-pencil version of the test by May to students who live farther than 125 miles from a Sylvan testing center.

John H. Yopp, ETS vice president for graduate and professional education, explains that the testing service relies on the international educational community and in-country advisers for information about student access to tests. In Africa, says Yopp, "we found out that the access we desired was not being provided, and we reintroduced paper-andpencil tests." As a result of lessons learned in Africa, Yopp reports, "ETS is making a concerted effort to be more efficient in responding to problems in a shorter time frame."

George Walker, vice president of research and dean of the graduate school at Indiana University, is chair of the TOEFL Policy Council. The council, Walker explains, is made up of educators from the United States and abroad who advise ETS on different aspects of test administration, including access. Walker contends that "ETS is making real progress. It was charting new waters in Africa and underestimated the magnitude of the problem. We will have to see whether difficulties arise in other countries, but the Africa situation made ETS aware of the kinds of obstacles that might be encountered." ETS plans to introduce computer-based testing in Asia in 2000-01.

Kenneth Rogers, associate dean of international programs and director of international services at Indiana University, says that most educators agree that the computer-based version of the TOEFL is superior in many ways to the paper-and-pencil exam it replaced. "The test has been made considerably more reliable in assessing students' Englishlanguage skills," says Rogers, "but you have to consider the costs and the benefits. Even now, in 1999, most foreign students are not accustomed to taking computerized tests, and many have a great deal of anxiety about doing so."

Another barrier to access, says Rogers, is the increased cost of the TOEFL exam. The fee was recently raised from $75 to $125 for students outside the United States and Canada. In response to complaints, ETS dropped the fee to $100. "But that amount," says Rogers, "is still very costly when you consider that students must also pay to apply to an institution and to take other tests.

Rogers has not seen an appreciable drop in foreign enrollments at Indiana University, but he says the current problems, if left unsolved, are bound to have consequences for enrollments. Moreover, he reports, "just as different barriers are making it more difficult for foreign students to apply to U.S. universities, other English-speaking countries are doing more to attract the students." Britain, Canada, and Australia have all developed organized programs to increase international enrollments at their universities.

(Just before this issue of Academe went to press, another glitch in the TOEFL exam was reported. More than a thousand international students who took the exam between September and March received inaccurate scores because an incorrect answer was programmed into a question on a reading passage. Test takers who were adversely affected will receive extra points on the exam, and their revised scores will be sent to the institutions to which they applied for admission.)