TESTING

A good test could be easy to create; the grade of difficulty is going to vary and depend on how
important the result is for the student’s development. Baxter tells that a good test has to look
after four qualities: it is valid, it is reliable, it is practical and it has no negative effects on the
teaching program.

The validity has three main types, content validity, that will depend on the level of the student and
the abilities he/she has to develop in it; the higher the level the difficult the content that is
supposed to test. When it’s about construct validity the teacher has to be careful of the
instructions of each item, he/she has to test what it’s supposed to test and nothing else, in order
to make the items very clear and so the students will understand and answer correctly. Another
type is face validity; this specifies that a test has to seem to truly test the subject that it wants to
evaluate. In other words, it’s very important to also show in a test the transparency and relevance
of content. Baxter recommends to check the test after finished with native speakers, other
teachers and other students; and finally “check that your test looks like it is testing what you
intend it to test.”

The second quality for a good test is reliability and it has two main forms: test reliability tells that
when a teacher wants to test if a student knows a topic, he/she has to make as much items as
needed asking about the main topic and always taking care of its content validity. It is fundamental
to make a test “long enough to be reliable but also short enough to be practical.” Teachers have to
give enough samples to measure the students’ knowledge of content and in those items, students
have to demonstrate their abilities of comparing multiple choices and making informed decisions.
Passing to scorer reliability, Baxter formulates the question “if you gave the same test to two
different people to mark, would they give the same score?”, this form tells that teachers must be
very clear at making the items instructions for the students to answer correctly what they are
being tested. Scorer reliability problems can be solved by using an answer key or a marking guide
and also if more than one teacher is marking the test, they will have to meet several times in order
to add new acceptable answers or to change the marking scheme.

At last there are two more qualities: Practicality is the most important and it will cover everything
necessary to make a good test, such as the time that will be needed for creating it, personnel
required for it, space and equipment, and money for extra resources. And finally, backwash will
tell the effects of a test on a teaching program; this will help the teachers improve the way they
assess the language learning as a whole, emphasizing the students’ needs on the test results.
Building a good test is not a simple task, but when teachers follow the accurate information, it will
lead to a successful language education process.