A Quest for Theoretical Underpinnings

This chapter offers three bodies of theoretical work as enabling and overarching in the research and work: (1) language as a factor in the academic readiness of students, including the challenges of Mother Tongue and language of instruction; (2) learning potential theories and how academic literacies assessment might be seen as a form of surfacing the potential of students to cope with higher education studies across different disciplinary contexts; (3) the ways in which educational measurement theory has enabled the work of literacies testing, but also ways in which these theories are challenged in contexts of educational diversity and the need for testing to be responsive to these diversities.