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EALTA Voss May 2005

Panel DebateAlan Davies

  1. Like spring-time flowers, racing one another to be first above ground, associations of language testers have multiplied excitedly in recent years. This association, ALTE, the Japan Association, at least three in North America and of course ILTA, and there are no doubt others, with more to come.
  1. Why should this be? We can suggest the current professionalisation of everything, all non-manual work domains. Its manifestation in language testing is simply our immediate experience of the phenomenon (Davies 1997). This flight to professionalism represents a desire for social status and a search for an ethical framework which will provide the kind of group security that may no longer be available to the individual or indeed to those occupations which do not claim ‘a distinctive ethos, where an ethos is understood as a characteristic devotion to a particular good.’ (Koehn 1994: 3).
  1. A profession is classically defined as a form of work organization which includes some central regulatory body to ensure the standard of performance of individual members; a code of conduct (also known as ethics, practice, and as standards); careful management of knowledge in relation to the expertise which constitutes the basis of the profession’s activities; and control of numbers, selection and training of new entrants. Max Weber regarded professions as the paradigm form of collegiate activity, in which rational-legal power is based on representative democracy and leaders in principle are first among equals.
  1. Status, accountability, the common good, these pursuits and the criteria for a professionall point to the classical model: medicine and the law. Entry, training, knowledge, conduct, all are controlled by members who also have the power of sanction. It is this last authority which is crucial because it allows the profession itself to police its members, to strike off, disbar, defenestrate an erring member whose conduct, professional and sometimes personal, brings the profession into disrepute.
  1. The new professions, seeking public validation, estate agents, public relations consultants, morticians, beauticians, language testers, are hard pressed to meet the classical criteria. Sanctions are particularly difficult: how do you discipline a charlatan who advertises him/herself as a licensed language tester? Hence the emphasis in these newer professions on a Code of Ethics and/or of Practice, which sets out, both to members and to the public what the profession’s principles are, what it promises, what its standards are.
  1. Such a Code has the merit of openness. The implication is that publishing its Code is a claim to professional status. House reminds us that ‘Ethics are the rules or standards of right conduct or practice, especially the standards of a profession.’ (House 1990: 91). However, such claims may be vain. One sociological approach treats professional ethics as an ideology, rather than an orientation necessarily adhered to, or meaningful in practice. Entry and knowledge controls function as a form of status exclusion from privileged and remunerative employment. In the 1960s and 1970s critics such as Ivan Illich saw the professions as totally self-interested and hypocritical. Professions, it was claimed, created new needs among the general population and then made the public dependent on the professions to service those needs. Codes of Ethics, according to this view, are used to establish exclusivity while claiming the high moral ground: such Codes protect the profession not the client. ‘Codes,’ write Coady and Bloch ‘may serve as the self-protective tools of a hypocritical cartel’ (1996: 4). And Beyerstein comments: ‘Many people become cynical about Codes of Ethics, because they suspect that such codes are of no help in resolving moral dilemmas … codes of ethics exist primarily to make professionals look moral.’ (1993: 417).
  1. In the absence of sanctions, in the face of taunts of smugness and hypocrisy, how do we respond? Homan argues for the ‘ethical milieu’, professional activity which requires institutionalising by the profession: the association, agreement on recognised qualifications, control on entry and a consensus on standards of conduct. If we are serious about being a profession, we need such measures; otherwise we are little more than a book club. As to the Code of Ethics, less rather than more may be desirable. If we want to avoid a Code becoming a legal contract, perhaps a simple version of the Hippocratic Oath should be our model (Boyd and Davies 2002). (The famous phrase: primum non nocere does not in fact occur in the Hippocratic Oath. It is the opinion of many scholars that Hippocrates did, in fact, originate the phrase, but in another of his writings, Epidemics, Bk. I, Sect. XI, one translation of which reads: "Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts. As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least to do no harm." For our part that may be represented as: be ethical, offer our professional services to our clients whoever they may be, be fair to all those affected by our work.Whatever the professional clothes we put on, we still depend on that ethical milieu, on creating a sense of trust, and on working together with colleagues for the public good and valuing being recognized by our peers as members in good standing.

References

Beyerstein, D. 1993 ‘The functions and limitations of Codes of Ethics’ In Winkler, E.R. and Coombs, J.R. (eds) Applied Ethics: a Reader Oxford: Blackwell: 416-425

Boyd, K. and Davies, A. 2002 'Doctors' Orders for Language Testers: the origin and purpose of Codes of Ethics' Language Testing Volume 19: 296-322

Coady, M. and Bloch, S. 1996 ‘Introduction’ in Coady, M. and Bloch, S. (eds) Codes ofEthics and the Professions Melbourne: Melbourne University Press: 1-10

Davies, A. 1997 ‘Demands of being professional in language testing’ LanguageTesting Volume 14: 328-339 (special issue on ethics).

Homan, R. 1991 The Ethics of Social ResearchLondon: Longman

House, E.R. 1990 ‘Ethics of Evaluation Studies’ In Walberg, H.J. and Haertel, G.D. (eds) The International Encyclopedia of Educational Evaluation Oxford: Pergamon 91-94.

Koehn, D. 1994 The Ground of Professional EthicsLondon: Routledge