Evaluating Language Learning Spaces: Developing Formative Evaluation Procedures to Enable Growth and Innovation

Abstract

Despite the frequent presence of language learning spaces (LLSs) at institutions across the world since the 1990s, there is still no consensus on how to evaluate such centres. With the exception of Morrison (2005), we do not even have a good number of well-documented approaches or frameworks for those wishing to conduct an evaluation to draw from. The very nature of a self-access centre, with its fluid population of users pursuing a diverse variety of learning goals, makes the task considerably more challenging than a course evaluation, which usually has clearly defined objectives and a fixed group of participants. This problem has been recognised since self-access first emerged as its own field (Riley, 1996), but recent surveys of the field reveal a similar picture today (Gardner & Miller, 2015; Reinders & Lazaro, 2008).

Keywords

• self-access