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LANGUAGE TESTING INGLÉS

Second Bimester

Language School

Teacher: Orlando V. Lizaldes E.

April – August 2011

Second Bimester• 5 Validity• 6 Measurement• 7 The social character of language tests• 8 New directions –and dilemmas?

2http://www.google.com/imgres

Testing is a matter of using data to establish evidence of learning.

 

What makes a good tests good?

Its qualities: Reliable, Valid, Practical.

There’s no such a thing as a “good test”

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Validity

Validity Reliability (standardized tests) Inference Judgment Test Validation

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Testing the test

Validity

Reliability

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Key questions in assessment

Validity: does this test measure what is supposed to measure?

Reliability: does this test or instrument consistently measure what is supposed to measure?

The harder of the two concepts is…

Reliability doesn’t really apply to classroom teachers or

classroom based test very often.

Reliability. Conceptual understanding

•May refer to a complete test or to individual items on the test.• It has to deal with consistency of measurement… means the same test to the same group of students.•It is not really a reliability application in classroom-based teaching. We really don’t have time to give the same tests over and over to the same person to see if this test is reliable or not. High stakes test (YES)

VALID TEST

Remember:

T: V = R

T: R ≠ V

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EXAMPLE:

Validity: the degree to which the test actually measures what it is intended to measure.

VALIDITY

content

construct

face

Consequential

If no validation

There is potential for unfairness and injustice

The potential is in proportion to what is at stake.

The validation procedure guarantees the FACE VALIDITY of the test.

MEASUREMENT

What is measurement?Is the estimation of physical quantity such as distance, energy, temperature, time. Measurements find the ratio of some physical quantity to a standard quantity of the same type, thus a measurement of length is the ratio of a physical length to some standard length, such as a standard meter.

MEASUREMENT Assessment usually involves allocating

a score, an attractively simple number. A rose is a rose is a rose “Gertrude Stein

(Sacred Emily) A score is not a score is not a score

because different raters give the same and different scores.

Measurement = dauntingly technical field = means, percentiles, standard deviations and statistics.

Measurement always involves some error, and so in science measurements are accompanied by error bounds.

QUANTIFICATION

MATH – PROCEDURES

The assigning of numbers and scores

For various kinds of mathematical and

statistical patterning within the matrix in order to investigate

the extent to which necessary properties are present in

the assessment.

Investigating the properties of individual test items

Investigating rater characteristics is important to guaranteeing the meaningfulness and fairness of assessment performance. (ITEM ANALYSIS).

Item analysis is a normal part of test development

PILOT OPERATIONAL

Correlation coefficient r

It expresses the extent to which one score set is knowable from another, and uses a scale from 0 to 1.

Reliability coefficient Inter-rater reliability

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Norm-referenced and Criterion-referenced MEASUREMENTS

Norm-referenced Measurements (N-R-M) adopts a framework of comparison between individuals for understanding the significance of any single score.

In Criterion-referenced Measurements (C-R-M) individual performances are evaluated against a verbal description of a satisfactory performance at a given level.

Criterion-referenced

They are not always easily defined in a yes/no judgment.

Norm-referenced

Scores may not be consistent across instrumentswww.utpl.edu.ec

Bell curve of a normal distribution

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CENTRAL TENDENCY

The Central Tendency of a distribution is an estimate of the “center” of a distribution of values.

http://www.google.com/images?imgurlstr=http://centraltendency

CENTRAL TENDENCY There are three major types of

estimates of Central Tendency:

- Mean - Median - Mode

CENTRAL TENDENCY

The Mean or average is probably the most commonly used method of describing central tendency.

CENTRAL TENDENCY

The Mean To compute the mean, add up all the values and divide by the number of values.

CENTRAL TENDENCY The Mean

For example: 20, 20, 20, 18, 17, 14, 14=

135 The sum of these 8 values is

135/8=

16.87

CENTRAL TENDENCY The Median Is the score found at the exact middle of the set of values. One way to compute the median is to list all scores in numerical order, and then locate the score in the center of the sample.

The Median EXAMPLES:

15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 17, 18, 20

There are 8 scores and score # 4 and # 5 represent the halfway point. Since both these scores are 15, the median is 15.

Example: find the Median of {12, 3 and 5} Put them in order: 3, 5, 12 The middle number is 5, so the median is 5.

CENTRAL TENDENCY If the two middle scores have different

values, you would have to interpolate to determine the median.

There are now fourteen numbers and so we don't have just one middle number, we have a pair of middle numbers:

3, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 21, 23, 23, 23, 23, 29, 40, 56 In this example the middle numbers are 21 and

23. To find the value half-way between them, add them

together and divide by 2: 21 + 23 = 44

44 ÷ 2 = 22 And, so, the Median in this example is 22.

The social character of language tests

Educational assessment has traditionally drawn its concepts and procedures from the field of Psychology.

When tests reform are introduced within the educational system, they are likely to figure prominently in the press and become matters of public concern.

Conventional proficiency tests have been used for purposes of exclusion.

Industrialized countries have developed more flexible policies for the recognition and certification of specific work-related skills (competencies)

International Ss need to meet a standard on a language test for academic purposes.

Computers and Language Testing

The proponents of computer based testing can

point to a number of advantages. First, scoring

of fixed response items can be done

automatically, and the candidate can be given

a score immediately. Second, the computer

can deliver tests that are tailored to the

particular abilities of the candidate.

It seems inefficient for all candidates to take all the questions on a test; clearly some are so easy for some candidates that they provide little information on their abilities; others are too hard to be of use. It makes sense to use the very limited time available for testing to focus on those items that are just within, and just beyond a candidate’s threshold of ability.

The use of computer for delivery of test materials raises questions of validity. For example, different levels of familiarity with computers will affect people’s performance with them, and interaction with the computer may be stressful experience for some students or candidates. (McNamara ( 2000, 79-81)

New directions

Computer based tests (CBT) Do raters react differently to

printed versus handwritten texts? Semi-direct test of speaking.

(cheaper to administer – raises questions of validity since there’s no COMMUNICATION at all.)

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Summing - up

Language testing remains a complex and perplexing activity.

Language testing is an uncertain and approximate business at the best times, even if to the outsider this may be camouflaged by its impressive, even daunting, technical trappings (McNamara, Language Testing, 86).

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Consulted Bibliography McNamara, T.(2000). Language Testing. Oxford

University Press. London Heaton J. B.(1998). Classroom Testing. Keys to

Language Teaching. Longman. New York (USA) Richards, J.C. (2005). Communicative Language

Teaching , Cambridge Univ. Press Brown, H. D. (2004). Language Assessment. Principles

and classroom practices. Longman, United States IBT Tests (2004). MacGraw Hills. Freeman D., Richards J.C. (2001). Teacher Learning in

Language Teaching. Pearson. USA O’Malley, J. M., Valdez Pierce, L. (1996). Authentic

assessment for English language learners. Practical approaches for teachers. Longman. USA 39

THANK YOU

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