The development of conceptual frameworks for fairness in language testing has significantly expanded the scope of discussions on fairness. Empirical research motivated by these theories, however, has been minimal. There is no research, for example, that thoroughly examines the perceptions of test takers concerning fairness as outlined in the frameworks. Taking the context of the admissions officer system of universities in Korea, this paper looks at how the information released by universities before their exams affect students’ perceptions of test fairness. Furthermore, the paper attempts to examine the washback of such perceptions as test-takers prepare for the test. Two Korean universities that conducted written tasks for its early admissions processes were selected. Participants were six actual test-takers, who were extensively surveyed and interviewed. The results show that students placed much more faith in the assessment when the information regarding the test construct was relayed in a clear and consistent manner. Such results suggest that test developers need to pay acute attention to the information they provide to test-takers prior to the test, and that test-takers should be aware of the rights that they have regarding the disclosure of test information.

I. Introduction
  1. Fairness: The Ethics of Language Testing
  2. The Dearth of Fairness and Washback Studies on Language Tests
 II. Context of the Study
  1. The Stakes of University Entrance Exams in South Korea
  2. The Test
 III. Method
  1. The Research Questions
  2. Participants
  3. Data Collection and Analysis
 IV. Results
  1. What Information Were the Test-Takers Provided With?
  2. Test-Takers’ Perception of the Information
  3. The Effects of Test-Takers’ Perception in Terms of Accountabilityand Washback
 V. Discussion
 REFERENCES

• In-hye Choi(Seoul National University)