An international framework and local standardised test: a former item writer's autoethnography

A recent trend dominating education worldwide is the enactment of external accountability frameworks and standards-based assessment. Likewise, in language education, international standards like the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) have been increasingly used for local standardised test development and alignment. However, there has been little research into the application of the CEFR in item writing, the activity of creating new items and associated materials, in local standardised testing contexts. To bridge this gap, the current autoethnography shares my firsthand experience of writing items for a locally developed CEFR-aligned standardised English test in Vietnam. By combining evocative and analytic autoethnography, I aim to achieve two simultaneous aims. My first goal is to offer insight into a prevalent but not unproblematic practice of borrowing international standards to develop local high-stakes tests from the perspective of an item writer. Second, my item writing vignettes serve to demonstrate the advantages of autoethnography over other methodological approaches in investigating research contexts where access to suitable participants is particularly challenging.