PART A Tests Types, Formats and Uses

1. Introduction

1.1 Aims

The aims of this part are to introduce the main types of language tests and describe how these tests are used. Much of the information
contained in this chapter may not be new to you, as a teacher you will most likely have come across all of them over the years. This part is
therefore designed to formalise your knowledge and to help you to distinguish the relationships (similarities and differences) between the
various tests described.

1.2. Objectives

At the end of the unit you should be able to:

1. identify different types of language test.

2. list the advantages and disadvantages of the various test formats described.

3. describe the uses to which language tests are put.

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 PART A Tests Types, Formats and Uses
1.3 What is a test?
I should start this course by describing exactly what I think a test is. According to Carroll

a psychological or educational test is a procedure designed to elicit certain behavior from which one can make inferences about
certain characteristics of an individual. (J. B. Carroll, 1968, p.: 46)

While this definition works on one level, it might be more useful to see a test as:

A procedure designed to elicit a particular behaviour (in our case a sample of language or an indication of knowledge of an aspect of language).
This behaviour is then reported in one of the following ways:

• through comparison with descriptions of behaviour (e.g. the descriptors on a rating scale),
• by indicating that a test taker exhibits enough to suggest that a predetermined level of the ability being measured has been
demonstrated (e.g. that they have done enough to obtain a passing grade in our test),
• by comparing the performance of this test taker with the rest of the test population.

In other words, the test taker’s performance on our test allows us to draw inferences related to the ability we are testing. It will become clear
(I hope) during this course that the degree to which we can support or justify these inferences lies at the core of all we do as testers.

You should now be ready to read the next stage of this part, which looks at the purposes for which we test.

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