The Effect Of Examiner Gender On Candidates' Test Anxiety Levels In The Ielts Speaking Test

Test anxiety has long been troubling many test-takers.The IELTS speaking test poses much pressure on candidates because of its one-on-one,face-to-face feature.Although detailed code of practice has been delivered to all the examiners to reduce their interference during the test,candidates interpret examiner gender effect in different ways,which cannot be easily eliminated through examiner training.Gender,as a physical trait of the examiners,is one of the possible stimuli to test anxiety.To analyze the effect of examiner gender on candidates' test anxiety levels and find out the link between such effect and test-takers' scores,a quantitative research method is adopted in this study.An original Examiner Gender Scale is designed for142 participants to measure the influence of such effect and the statistical tool SPSS is used for data analysis.Through Independent t-test,Descriptive Statistics,Spearman Correlation and Binary Logistic Regression,it is found that examiner gender does have an effect on candidates' test anxiety levels and such influence mainly comes from social and affective levels.It is also found that examiner gender-evoked test anxiety shares a weak correlation with the test scores in the IELTS speaking test and such test anxiety accounts for 8% of the variance in the final scores.Generally,the higher the examiner gender-evoked test anxiety levels are,the lower the final scores will be.Efforts of examiners and candidates,and the improvement of the IELTS test administration as well,are all required for the making of a more sophisticated speaking test system.The research digs out the relation between examiner gender and candidates' test anxiety.It enriches Zeidner's transactional test anxiety model and gender studies in testing domain.Suggestions are also provided to the standardization of the IELTS speaking test and other oral assessments.