Investigating cultural variability in rater judgements of oral proficiency interviews

The article is concerned if the cultural background of non-native raters could lead to substantial differences in the assessment of students’ oral performances during the national examination in the English language in Estonia. The discussion involves the analysis of the ratings of twenty video-recordings of oral proficiency interviews by two rater groups of the Estonian and Russian origin, and a questionnaire study investigating rater perceptions of the national examination. Despite the lack of any marked cultural bias being displayed in the raters’ behaviour, the results of the study reveal a number of significant differences in their perceptions of various aspects of the national examination as well as their own behaviour during the rating process.