Principles of assessment serve as a guidelines to ensure that the test is useful, appropriate, effective, and

plausible.[1] This principles are crucial to be taken into consideration because assessment is an
important aspect of educational process which determines the level of accomplishments of students.[2]

Five principles

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There are five general principles of assessment:[1][3]

practicality

reliability

validity

authenticity

washback

Practicality

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This principle refers to the time and cost constraints during the construction and administration of an
assessment instrument.[1] Meaning that the test should be economical to provide. The format of the
test should be simple to understand. Moreover, solving a test should remain within suitable time. It is
generally simple to administer. Its assessment procedure should be particular and time-efficient.[4]

Reliability

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The principle of reliability refers to the stability of scores over time and different raters. There are four
types of reliability: student-related which can be personal problems, sickness, or fatigue, rater-related
which includes bias and subjectivity, test administration-related which is the conditions of test taking
process, test-related which is basically related to the nature of a test.[5][1][4]

Validity
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Validity refers to the tests that measure what it claims to measure.[1][5]

content validity

criterion validity

construct validity

consequential validity

face validity

Authenticity

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The assessment instrument is authentic when it is contextualized, contains natural language and
meaningful, relevant, and interesting topic, and replicates real world experiences.[1]

Washback

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This principle refers to the consequence of an assessment on teaching and learning within classrooms.[1]
Washback can be positive and negative. Positive washback refers to the desired effects of a test, while
negative washback refers to the negative consequences of a test. In order to have positive washback,
instructional planning can be used.[6]