Table 5: Comments on the launch of PTE Academic (Chung, 2009; CollegeConfidential, 2009; Stewart, 2009; Swain, 2012)


Commentator Karen Kristof


Senior Associate Director of Admission


Smith College (USA) (Chung, 2009)


Glenn Fulcher


Professor of Language Testing


University of Leicester (UK) (Swain, 2012)


Summarized comment


‘We want to be flexible – but careful – in our English proficiency requirements.’ Smith College has not yet decided whether it will accept PTE Academic scores. The college used to accept TOEFL exclusively and only very recently added IELTS. It is too soon to be able to comment on the efficacy of PTE Academic.


Computer scoring correlates just as highly with human scores as human scores do with each other; however, a human benchmark for computer validity weakens claims that machines will be more reliable. The critical consideration is whether marking criteria used by computers are comparable to those used by humans, which can identify richness and nuance in EAP skills.


Liz Hamp-Lyons,


Professor of English Language Assessment


University of Bedfordshire (UK)


(Swain, 2012) Bethan Marshall


Senior lecturer in English and Education King’s College London


(Stewart, 2009) Tim Oates


Research director at Cambridge Assessment


(Stewart, 2009)


Computers are reliable as they will always assess in exactly the same way. But people write for people rather than computers. If a computer is marking tests, there is risk of backwash through writing for the computer.


It is extremely unlikely that automated scoring systems will not be used extensively in educational assessment in future. It is a question of ‘when’ not ‘if’.


PTE offers busy admissions staff a rapid source of information about students’ ability, but only a very restricted view of speaking ability is presented. A speaking test which is marked using automated scoring cannot substitute a human interview test.


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Chapter 14: Learning from large-scale standardized EAP tests


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