TOEFL to be soon offered as personalised test based on individual backgrounds, requirements: ETS

NEW DELHI: The English language test TOEFL will soon be offered as a personalised test depending upon individual requirements as well as the test takers' background to make the assessment as unbiased as possible, according to the Educational Testing Service.

Rohit Sharma, global senior vice-president of Higher Education and Work Skills, ETS, said about the Princeton-based agency's plan for personalised assessments for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and increased usage of artificial intelligence in the test. "The ideal future of assessment is to provide every individual with a personalised assessment based on their background, making it as unbiased as possible. For example, if someone with an Indian background takes the test, is it the same as someone with a German background? Statistically, there's no significant difference," he added.

"However, it would be better if, when registering for the test, you could indicate your specific needs, like applying for a journalism programme, and the test could adapt to assess higher-level writing skills, for instance," he said. Sharma informed that ETS is also looking at personalisation based on background. "For example, students from India might be strong in written English but need improvement in spoken English.

Personalised assessments are likely to take about 24 to 36 months to be rolled out. This also involves working with institutions that are willing to adopt and pay for these differentiated assessments, as it breaks away from the norm of standardised assessments," he said. TOEFL is a standardised test to measure the English language ability of non-native speakers wishing to enrol in English-speaking universities.

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The test is accepted by more than 12,000 institutions in more than 160 countries and is universally accepted in popular destinations such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and by over 98 per cent of universities in the UK.