A Scoping Review on CEFR: Methods used in Past Studies

Abstract

CEFR has been perceived to be an effective platform that could assist in improvising the standard of ELT in the country dominantly to achieve an international standard. Hence, some countries have adopted this framework to enhance their citizens’ English Language proficiency. Nevertheless, the implementation of CEFR occurs in accordance to the specific needs, purposes and aspiration of particular countries. A myriad of researches has been conducted to investigate various issues and challenges faced in the verge of implementing CEFR. Therefore, this scoping review has a specific purpose of analyzing the current trends in the study of CEFR focusing mainly on the choices of methodologies applied during the conduction of the research. A total of 48 empirical studies on CEFR were compiled and analyzed to discover the variation of methodologies used while categorizing them into four parts including research method, sample, instruments and data analysis. Findings show that there is a balance between quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods and the samples used are mostly teachers. It is worth noting that the combination of questionnaires and structured interviews are the most popular instruments used and descriptive statistics appear to be the most prevalent data analysis method used. The research gap discovered through this analysis will assuredly assist further choices of research for the betterment of CEFR implementation. It can be concluded that further research on the effectiveness and the outcomes of CEFR should be conducted apart from merely focusing on issues and challenges faced.

Keywords: CEFR; english language teaching; research method; scoping review