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Maryam Maghrour - Language Testing & Assessment
Maryam Maghrour - Language Testing & Assessment
Assessment: A Comprehensive
Guide
Ch.1: Preliminaries and Seminal Issues
Chapter Highlights
01 | 02 | 03 |
Formal vs. informal
Test, measurement, assessment Direct vs. indirect assessment
evaluation, and assessment Formative vs. summative Explicit vs. implicit assessment
assessment
04 | 05 | 06 |
Norm-referenced tests vs. Language testing paradigms Features of a good test
criterion-referenced tests
Performance-referenced tests vs.
system-referenced tests
Teaching and Testing: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Reciprocal relationship
- Any shift of focus or paradigm shift in teaching has led to a revision in testing.
In a similar manner, Cheng (2005) maintained that language testing is pivotal to
language teaching.
- Davies (1990): Three central language-learning issues:
The functions of tests and testing go to extremes - Spolsky and Shohamy's (1999):"a test can
and far beyond being predominantly aimed at help some people but cause harm when its
evaluating and measuring the learners' results are misapplied or its aims distorted".
attainment. -One of the offshoots of this distortion in the
- They have the power and influence to aims of tests is "washback," a technical concept
change and shape the test-taker’s behavior. utilized to explain the impact of testing on
- They can even change one's life and have the various aspects of teaching programs, which
ability to shape his/her future simply by has been explored from various viewpoints by
their results. language testing researchers throughout the
world (Ali & Hamid, 2020).
Tests, Measurement, Evaluation, and Assessment
Measurement Assessment
Test The process of gathering, analyzing, - an ongoing process of ensuring
1. as the narrowest of all and interpreting information regarding that course objectives are
refers to any procedure used to the degree of achievement of achieved.
measure an ability. instructional objectives on the part of - It is a related sequence of
2. "a measurement instrument the students (Bachman, 1990) measures utilized to determine a
designed to elicit a specific complex characteristic of an
sample of an individual's individual or a group
behavior" (Bachman, 1990, p.
20).
Evaluation - aimed at understanding and
improving individuals' learning.
“The systematic gathering of information to
3. It necessarily quantifies the Unlike evaluation, which is
make decisions" (Bachman, 1990, p. 21).
characteristics of individuals judgmental, assessment is
Therefore, when the results of tests are used for
according to explicit rules and diagnostic in nature and tries to
the purpose of making decisions, evaluation'
procedures. figure out areas of improvement.
comes into play.
Formal Assessment versus Informal Assessment
Direct Testing skills than receptive skills, e.g. oral interview tests for evaluating
versus
Indirect Testing speaking ability and essay writing tasks for measuring writing skills.
Indirect testing takes advantage of a test, usually on paper, to
literacy.
Explicit Assessment
versus
Implicit Assessment
Explicit mode occurs as a distinct activity or event and learners are aware
that they are being assessed. This mode of assessment is continuous and
cyclical, separate from teaching, used mostly for summative decisions, and
both teachers and students are aware of the assessment .
Implicit mode is blended with instruction and takes place continuously in the
classroom without learners being aware of the assessment (Bachman & Palmer,
2010). It is continuous and cyclical, is a part of classroom teaching, and is used
mostly for formative decisions; students are unaware of the assessment activity, and
it is sometimes called dynamic assessment.
Norm-Referenced Testing versus Criterion-Referenced Testing
- NRTS are intended to underscore achievement - CRTs determine "what test-takers can do
differences between and among students in and what they know, not how they compare
order to yield a reliable rank order of students to others“.
across a continuum of achievement from high- - They demonstrate how well students are
achievers to low-achievers . doing in relation a pre-specified
- The content of an NRT test is chosen performance level and a pre-determined set
according to how well it ranks students. of educational goals.
- NRTS compare an examinee's performance to - The content of a CRT test is determined by
that of other examinees. Standardized how well it matches the learning outcomes
examinations like TOEFL, IELTS, GRE, and deemed most important.
SAT.
Performance-Referenced Tests versus System-Referenced Tests
-Integrative testing
- essay-translation era psychometric- communicative
structuralist concerned with the total
- lack of theory in
communicative effect of
language testing
discourse and meaning and
practice
argued for the testing of
language in context
Maryam Maghrour
10/016/2023
Date