Negotiating the test: teacher agency, blended learning, and ecological language assessment literacy in Iran’s high-stakes EFL context

In high-stakes testing regimes, exams like Iran’s Konkur often sideline communicative language teaching. This convergent mixed-methods study (Creswell & Clark, 2017) investigates how a blended learning (BL) intervention can enhance the Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) of secondary school EFL teachers within the constraints of Iran’s high-stakes Konkur examination system. Quantitative outcome measures (LALT scores, artifact analysis) were collected concurrently with qualitative process data (reflective journals, interviews, workshop transcripts), with integration achieved through gain-score stratified sampling and joint display analysis. Grounded in Fulcher’s (2012) LAL framework and Messick’s (2022) validity theory, the research involved 60 Iranian teachers (30 experimental, 30 control) in an eight-week BL program. Quantitative results revealed significant gains in designing authentic communicative tasks (d = 1.56) and developing analytic rubrics (d = 1.33). Furthermore, analysis of teacher-designed assessments showed a 53.8%-point reduction in the proportion of tasks aligned with the Konkur format. Qualitative analysis uncovered three teacher negotiation strategies: stealth adaptation, peer advocacy, and strategic compliance. The study advances an original Ecological Framework for LAL Development that models the dynamic interaction among teacher agency, institutional affordances, and macro-policy pressures. The framework synthesizes Fulcher’s (2020) competency domains, Messick’s (2022) consequential validity, and ecological systems theory, offering implications for equitable professional development in high-stakes testing contexts.