Chapter 1 :
PURPOSES AND METHODS OF LANGUAGE TESTING
TEACHER MADE VERSUS STANDARDIZED TESTS
In any consideration of educational testing, a distinction must be drawn between the rather informal, teacher made test of the classroom and those formal, large scale, “standardized” instruments which are prepared by professional testing services to assist institution in the selection, placement, and evaluation of students.
In this situation, test objectives can be based directly on course objectives, and test content derived from specific course content.
THE PRINCIPAL EDUCATIONAL USES OF LANGUAGE TESTS
Six different emphases in measuring student ability or potential :
1. To determine readiness for instructional programs, test are used to separate those who are prepared for an academic or training program from those who are not.
2. To classify or place individuals in appropriate language classes, to distinguish degrees of proficiency.
3. To diagnose the individual’s specific strengths and weakness, to measuring different language skills of components of single broad skill.
4. To measuring aptitude for learning, to predict future performance
5. To measure the extent of student achievement of the instructional goals, to indicate group or individual progress toward the instructional objectives of a specific study or training program.
6. To evaluate the effectiveness of instruction, to asses the degree of success of the instructional program.
The six categories can be grouped as :
1. Aptitude : to indicate an individual’s facility for acquiring specific skills and learnings
- To measuring aptitude for learning
2. General proficiency : to indicates what an individual’s capable of doing now
- To determine readiness for instructional programs
- To diagnose the individual’s specific strengths and weakness
- To classify or place individuals in appropriate language classes
3. Achievement : to indicate the extent an individual has mastered specific skills
- To measure the extent of student achievement of the instructional goals
- To evaluate the effectiveness of instruction
THE PRINCIPAL LANGUAGE TESTING TECHNIQUES
1. Translation
2. Dictation
3. Composition
4. Scored interview
5. Multiple choice items
6. Short answer items
THE LANGUAGE SKILLS AND THEIR COMPONENTS
Language exists in two forms, spoken and written
Two linguistics activities are associated with both speech and writing;
1. An encoding : speaking and writing, whereby we communicate our ideas, thoughts, or feeling through one or the other form of language.
2. An decoding : listening and reading, the parallel decoding process by which we “understand” either a spoken or a written message
The components and language skills :
1. Grammatical structure ( Listening, speaking, reading, writing )
2. Vocabulary
3. Phonology / orthography ( Reading, writing )
4. Rate and general fluency ( Speaking )
CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS AND LANGUAGE TESTING
Contrastive analysis is undoubtedly useful in helping to estimate to probable relative difficulty of various patterns in the target language – in this case, English.
Chapter 3 :
TESTING GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE
GENERAL NATURE OF THE ESL STRUCTURE TEST
There is an essential difference between the traditional grammar test for the native speaker of English and the kind of structure test appropriate for the foreign learner.
Native speaker :
- Test of concentrated on matter of style and diction appropriate for rather formal written English
Foreign learner :
- Test of control of the basic grammatical patterns of the spoken language
Advance foreign learner :
- Test of formal style and diction at all meaningful, and
- Test of writing ability and kept quite separate from the test of structure
DETERMINATION OF TEST CONTENT
The preparation of structure test should always begin with the setting up of a detailed outline of the proposed test content. This outline may have to be modified somewhat on the basis of the result of pretesting , but must be taken to ensure that the final form of the test includes a broad range of relevant grammatical problems in proportions which reflect their relative importance. This point can’t be emphasized too strongly, for there is a common tendency in grammar testing to end up with a disproportionate number of items testing a few structural points that happen to be the easiest to put into the test writer’s favorite item format. Clearly, a test constructed with such a bias can’t serve as a fair or valid measure of either a student’s general progress or his overall competence in the language.
ITEM TYPES
1. Completion ( multiple choice ) present a context in which one or more words are missing.
2. Sentence alternatives ( multiple choice ) another item type does away with the item stem altogether and simply present several sentences from which the examinee choose the acceptable version.
3. Sentence interpretation ( multiple choice ) present a stimulus and then ask for an interpretation
4. Scramble sentence ( multiple choice ) which the examinee rearranges a jumbled series of elements so as to form an acceptable sentence.
5. Completion ( supply type ) returning to type 1, we may use the completion item type as a fill in exercise.
6. Conversion ( supply type ) the examinees to convert or transform a series of sentences in a specified manner by changing form present to past, active to passive, singular to plural and so fort.
ADVICE ON ITEM WRITING
Most of the principles which apply to the preparation of these items are appropriate for other multiple choice item types as well
1. The language of the dialogue should read like spoken English.
2. The dialogue should sound like a natural response to the first part
3. All distracters should be definitely non English
4. No distracters should include “error” which would appear in writing but not in speech
Chapter 5 :
TESTING VOCABULARY
SELECTION OF THE TEST WORDS
The selection of vocabulary test words can be drawn directly from the particular textbooks that have been used in class.
THE TESTING OF IDIOMS
Of particular importance are the two – word verbs or verbs – adverbs combinations in which the English language abounds – idiomatic constructions such as put off ( delay ), look over ( inspect ), come across ( encounter accidentally ).
ITEM TYPES
1. Definition ( multiple choice ), a test word followed by several possible definitions or synonyms
2. Completion ( multiple choice ), places the problem words in context
3. Paraphrase ( multiple choice ), underline a word in context and provide several possible meaning
4. Paraphrase ( Supply type ), asked to rewrite the sentence, substituting other words for the underline portion
5. Picture ( objective ) vocabulary may be measured with pictures
ADVICE ON ITEM WRITING
1. The definition should be expressed in simple words readily comprehensible to all examines
2. All the alternatives should be on approximately the same level or difficulty
3. All choices should be related to same general area or kind of activity
4. Should be of approximately the same length or be paired by length
5. Should be kept free of extraneous spelling problems.
Chapter 7 :
TESTING WRITING
WHAT IS MEANT BY “WRITING”
Writing as a complex skill involving the simultaneous practice of number of very different abilities.
Five general components :
1. Content : the substance of writing ; the ideas expressed
2. Form : the organization of the content
3. Grammar : the employment of grammatical forms and synthetic patterns
4. Style : the choice of structures and lexical items to give a particular tone or flavor to the writing
5. Mechanics : the use of the graphic conventions of the language
COMPARISON OF COMPOSITION AND OBJECTIVE TEST OF WRITING
The following points of the essay or generally composition :
1. Composition test require students to organize their own answer, expressed in their own words
2. Composition test motivate students to improve their writing
3. Composition test are much easier and quicker to prepare than objective test
The critics of composition test :
1. Unreliable measure
2. Students can cover up weakness by avoiding problems
3. Require much more scoring time than objective tests
OBJECTIVE TEST OF THE ELEMENT OF WRITING
A. Testing Formal Grammar and style
Formal grammatical of writing but not in structure tests are the following :
1. Subject verb agreement
2. Structural parallelism
3. Case of pronouns
4. Comparison of adjectives
5. Formatting of adverbs
6. Formatting of irregular verbs
The factors problems of grammar and style for test writing
1. Error recognition
2. Sentences completion
3. Sentence correction
B. Testing the Ability to Organize Materials
Probably the most satisfactory of the tests that we do have are those of paragraph organization, in which the examinee is acquired to reorder several “scrambled” sentences into a coherent paragraph, and to indicate the correct order of the sentences.
C. Testing the Mechanics of Writing
Punctuation and capitalization, that so called mechanics of writing, maybe tested objectively with simple adaptations of the completion and correction items described earlier.
In preparing test of mechanics of writing, one must be careful to avoid testing matters of divided usage.
IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COMPOSITION TESTS
1. Preparation of the Test
- Arrange to take several samples, rather than just one
- Set writing tasks that are within the reach of all
- Make the writing tasks clear and specific
- Allow no alternatives
- Pretest the writing test assignment
2. Scoring the Test
- Decide in advance on the precise basis for scoring
- Treat the papers anonymously during scoring
- Scan a sample of papers to decide upon standards
- If the compositions are to be used to make critical decisions about large numbers of students
Chapter 9 :
CONSTRUCTING THE TEST
Steps of the construction of an educational test :
1. Planning test
2. Preparing the test items and direction
3. Submitting the test material to review and revising on basis of review
4. Pretesting the material and analyzing the results
5. Assembling the final form of the test
6. Reproducing the test
PLANNING THE TEST
A. Determining the General Course Objectives
The course content :
1. Textbook lessons, each consisting of :
a. Short reading selection
b. Dialogue
c. Pronunciation drill
d. Grammar drill
e. Word study
f. Homework grammar exercise
2. Laboratory practice, including drill on dialogue and pronunciation points keyed to the textbook
3. Weekly compositions based on topics related to the textbook reading
The general objectives of the course :
1. To increase skill in listening comprehension
2. To increase skill in oral production
3. To develop skill in reading simple descriptive and expository prose
4. To develop skill in writing simple description and exposition
B. Dividing the General Course Objectives into Their Component
Four elements of Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing :
1. Phonology / orthography : the sound system (listening & speaking), graphic system (reading & writing)
2. Grammatical structure : the system grammatical signaling devices
3. Vocabulary : the lexical items needed to function effectively in each of the four skill
4. Rate and general fluency : the speed and ease with which the user of language can ddecode and encode message
C. Establishing the General Design of the Test
Two preliminary steps have established the objectives of hypothetical course in sufficient detail to enable, to decide upon the general design of the final achievement test.
Two extremely important factors must be considered : the time to be provided for testing, and the degree of speed to build into test.
Objectives measure of sound discrimination and general auditory comprehension. The two section might planned as follows :
- Section one : Sound discrimination. The examinee hears sets of three words and is asked to indicate which two are the same. Twenty items.
- Section two : Auditory comprehension. The examinee hears a series of question indicates which one of four printed choices would make a logical answer. Twenty items.
PREPARING THE TEST ITEMS AND DIRECTIONS
Additional Notes on the Preparation of Items
In the preparation of multiple choice or short answer ( Supply ) items, it is always necessary to write more items than will be needed in the final form of the test.
Writing Test Directions
Test direction should be brief, simple to understand, and free from possible ambiguities. Should be accompanied by sufficient examples to ensure that even the slow learner or least skilled examinee understand the problem type.
REVIEWING THE ITEMS
When the items have all been written, they should be set aside for a few days before being reviewed by the writer. Once he is satisfied with his material, it should be submitted to at least one colleague with experience in the subject-matter field.
PRESTESTING THE MATERIAL
Standard objective tests consist of pretested materials. That is to say, all the items have first been tried out on a fairly large number of subjects of the same kind as those for whom the test is being designed.
Two requirements statistically satisfactory :
1. If they are of a suitable level of difficulty-neither too hard nor too easy for the population being tested.
2. If they discriminate between those examinees who know the material or have the skills or abilities being tested, and those who do not.
ANALYZING THE PRETEST RESULTS (ITEM ANALYSIS)
After the pretest answer sheets have been accumulated (and there should be a safe number of these generally at least 100 completed papers), the items should be analyzed to determine their effectiveness in terms of the two criteria listed in the preceding section.
Determining Item Difficulty
The first step is to determine the difficulty level of each item. Though much more sophisticated techniques have been develop, a very satisfactory method is simply to ascertain the percent of the answered each item correctly.
Determining Item Discrimination
The second step, to determine how well each item discrimination between high and low examinees, for each item in a test should help to separate the proficient subjects from those who lack the tested skills or learning.
The several statistical techniques for calculating discrimination :
1. Separate the highest and the lowest 25% of the papers
2. For each item, subtract the number of “lows” who answered item correctly from the number of “highs” who answer correctly. (if more “lows” that “highs” get an item right, the result of this calculation will of course be negative and should be marked with a minus sign).
3. Divide the result of step 2 by the number of papers in each group, “highs” and “lows”, to obtain the “item discrimination index”.
Determining the Effectiveness of Distracters
An item contains a distracters which attracted no one, not even the poorest examinees, it is a nonfunctioning choice which will increase the chances that some examinees will get item right by guessing between or among the remaining two or three possibilities.
Recording Item Analysis Data
Record analysis data contains :
1. The item, written out in full
2. An identification of the pretest in which the item was tried out
3. The position of the item in the pretest
4. The item difficulty and discrimination indices and in the case of multiple choice items
5. A tabulation of how the “highs” and “lows” responded to the several choices
ASSEMBLING THE FINAL FORM
The test maker must take care not only to order the items according to increasing level of difficulty but also to ensure that :
1. Each answer position is used about the same number of times
2. The answer position don’t form any observable pattern
REPRODUCING THE TEST
1. Test material be reproduced as clearly as possible, for poor reproduction of a test will almost certainly affect student performance
2. Test material should be spaced so as to provide maximum ability
3. No multiple choice item should be begun on one page an continued on the next, for such a break in the text will disrupt the reader’s train of thought
4. When blank are left for the completion of short answer items, a guideline should be provided on which the examinee may write his response
5. To indicate at the bottom of each page whether the examinee is to continue on to the next page or stop his work
6. The direction for each part should occupy a right hand page of the book
7. The use of a separate cover sheet will prevent examinees from looking at the test material before the actual administration begins. The cover sheet is also the best place for giving general information and instruction about the test, such as :
a. The general purpose of the test
b. The method of recording responses
c. The method of changing answers if the examinee changes his mind
d. Information on whether or not guessing as penalized
e. In the case of reusable test books, an admonition not to write in the book
8. The pages of the test book should be stapled together with great care so that the back pages will not become detached in the course of handling
USING SEPARATE ANSWER SHEETS FOR MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST
The use of separate answer sheets is mandatory. Not only may the books then be used again, but a great deal of time will be saved in scoring
PREPARING EQUIVALENT FORMS
The most common useful for a number of purpose :
1. To provide for pre and post testing
2. To decrease the chance of “test compromise” in two or more form of a test
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