In this year’s James L. Barker Lecture, Professor Troy Cox shared his belief that testing isn’t just for professors—it’s for students.
Testing is never fun—unless you are Associate Professor Troy Cox (Language Learning and Assessment). As Director of the Center for Language Studies, he has facilitated and written dozens of tests, including the Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) and Language Ability Self-Evaluation Resource (LASER). These tests redefined how educators measure language fluency—through self-reflection.
In his 2025 James L. Barker Lecture, Cox argued that students learning a new language need to ask themselves more self-reflective questions about their willingness to communicate, their grit, and their perception of their own skills. As Cox learned through personal experiences, these questions prove essential in fostering engaged lifelong learning.
Questions Lead to Self-Reflection in Testing
Cox’s inspiration to include more self-reflection in language testing came while he was hiking in Bogotá, Columbia. Before he reached the summit, his Apple Watch pinged telling him that he had reached his calorie goal; at which point, he decided to turn around. A woman stopped him before he had made it too far down the trail and asked if he had reached the top.
In that moment, Cox realized that he wasn’t asking himself an important question: Was he making his own choices or letting life make them for him? Applying this principle to students, he realized he didn’t want them to see testing as a finite game, where they robotically go through the motions. Instead, he wanted students to assess their own agency in their learning process. So, he asked himself, “What can I have on my test that could help give the students the message that we want language learning to be an infinite game?”
Self-Reflection Leads to Life-Long Learners
Working with his colleague Associate Professor Matthew Wilcox (Language Assessment), Cox developed the LASER. This self-assessment tool focuses on students’ language background and includes questions that specifically target their willingness to communicate, ability to pursue despite difficulty (grit), and how well they can assess their own language limitations and strengths (self-appraisal).
Willingness to Communicate
When he was on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Italy, Cox remembers standing on a balcony, admiring the sea of red roofs. A church member came out and asked him what he was looking at. Responding, Cox mixed up the word for red roofs with another term entirely, accidentally referring to part of a female’s anatomy instead. Acknowledging his embarrassment, Cox relayed how crucial mistakes are in the language learning process. He said, “The fact is that when you’re willing to communicate, you’re willing to make errors, and when you’re willing to make errors, you have growth opportunities.” His perspective is supported by LASER statistics, which indicate that those who were most advanced in their language skills were the most willing to communicate.
Grit
Cox shared another story, describing his thesis defense. After re-explaining a concept to a committee member multiple times, the committee member finally told Cox, “Don’t advertise your ignorance.” Cox joked that he never gave up, but the experience taught him the value of tenacity—a skill he believes will help students stay engaged in language learning despite the difficulty.
On the LASER test, students are asked to self-evaluate their level of grit. As he analyzed their responses, Cox found that everyone had grit, but not all had the same quantity. The most advanced speakers showed the greatest level of grit, with it steadily declining as proficiency decreased. “The idea is that sustained effort and enduring commitment will take you further than natural talent,” Cox explained.
Self-Appraisal
Cox learned more about self-appraisal when, on a bike ride, his heart went into atrial fibrillation. At first, he ignored the irregular heartbeats, thinking his bike was the problem. However, after receiving an impression, he went home to reassess. Soon after, he decided to get help. Little did he know that going to InstaCare would lead to a hospital trip and cardioversion treatment—shocking his heart back to its regular rhythm.
Considering this experience evidence of his own lack of self-appraisal, Cox notes that he is not alone. In the analytics of the LASER test, he found that almost everyone overestimates their abilities, “except for the beginners,” he said, “who have a humility to start looking at what their errors are and mediate them.”
“If we can help students have better self-appraisal,” Cox asserted, “then they can more accurately self-assess what class to go into and what they should do to be a lifelong learner.”
Cox hopes students learning a second language will join him in the infinite game, a game where they invest in language learning out of curiosity, rather than just to check the boxes. If they do, he believes they will find personal fulfillment and the “joy of discovery.”
Learn more about Troy Cox’s research here.