The PIE: Who can become an accredited test centre?
CR: Pearson delivers the test through its global network of secure testing centres. We are extending our test centre network by partnering with leading institutions and international organisations. These test centres have been designed to meet Pearson’s stringent security measures. For example, we have recently launched new test centres with the London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) in London and Birmingham, and in Iraq, working in partnership with Britannia Educational Services – a leading British-Iraqi language training provider. We are really excited about this partnership as the test centre will be key to supporting young people applying for scholarships under Kurdistan’s Human Capacity Development Program in Higher Education (HCDP).
News and business analysis for Professionals in International Education
Have some pie!
Carl Rhymer, Global Sales Director, Pearson Language Testing
The PIE: Do you have regional managers that are managing the relationship with professional partners?
CR: We do, we have regional teams in a number of markets including teams in India, Pakistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, Korea and across Europe.
The PIE: How is your ‘footprint’ in North America?
CR: PTE Academic has rapidly built up acceptance to 2,840 programs globally including 50% of Ivy League colleges in the US such as Yale University and Harvard Business School and we are continuing to invest our efforts in securing even more recognition there.
The PIE: How are your tests scored?
CR: The entire test is scored using automated scoring including writing and speaking. Automated scoring, assesses the different language skills objectively and gives more analytical, objective results than humans do. Unlike human judgment, which is prone to be influenced by a variety of factors, an automated scoring system is impartial. This means that the system is not “distracted” by language-irrelevant factors such as test takers’ appearance, personality or body language (as can sometimes happen in spoken interview tests).
“The system is not ‘distracted’ by language-irrelevant factors such as test takers’ appearance, personality or body language”
The early scepticism around machine rating is most definitely disappearing. Now, it’s just not an issue. People are seeing test results coming through, they look at the person in front of them and the results equate. If by chance the automated scoring machine finds your work so extraordinary that it is uncertain about the score it has computed, this uncertain score is flagged and human examiners have a look at your work.
The PIE: How long has auto-rating of tests existed?
CR: The Pearson automatic system is the result of years of research in speech recognition, statistical modelling, linguistics and testing theory. This is tried-and-tested technology and some of the projects it has been used for include the assessment of spoken Spanish for the US Department of Homeland Security and a test of Dutch language and culture for the Justice Ministry’s Immigration and Naturalisation Service in the Netherlands.
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