ATTRIBUTES OF GOOD TESTS

Dr. Nour-eddine Laouni

Good tests have certain qualities that make them good. All good tests are purposeful,
valid, reliable, objective, comprehensive, differentiating, expected, instructive and
useful. You will want to keep these qualities in mind any time you create or revise a test.
Validity is the most important principle of a test. Validity is the extent to which
inferences made from test results are appropriate, meaningful, and useful in terms of the
purpose of the test. A valid test of reading ability actually measures reading ability, not
vision, nor previous knowledge in a subject, nor some other variables of questionable
relevance. To see the validity of a test, there is no final, absolute measure, but several
different kinds of evidence may be evoked. In some cases, it may be appropriate to
examine the extent to which a test calls for performance that matches that of the course or
unit of study being tested. In other cases, we may be concerned of how well a test
determines whether or not students have reached an established set of goals or levels of
competence. Statistical correlation with other related but independent measures is another
widely accepted form of evidence. Other concerns about a test’s validity may focus on
the consequences-of a test or even on the test-taker’s perception of validity.

A reliable test is consistent and dependable. If we give the same test to the same student
or matched students on different occasions, the test should yield similar results. The issue
of reliability of a test may be addressed by considering a number of factors that may
contribute to the unreliability f a test, the fluctuations in the students, in scoring, in test
administration, and in the test itself.

A practical test is not excessively expensive, stays within appropriate time constrains, is
relatively easy to administer, and has a scoring /evaluation procedure that is specific and
time efficient. The value and quality of a test sometimes hinge on such nitty-gritty
practical consideration.

The next attribute of good test is authenticity. Authenticity is the degree of

correspondence of the characteristics of a given language test task to the features of a
target language task. An authentic task is a task that is likely to be enacted in the real
world. Many test items fail to simulate real world tasks. They may be contrived or
artificial in their attempt to target a grammatical form or a lexical item. Test authenticity
may be presented in the following:

1) The language in the test is as natural as possible, 2) Items are contextualized rather
than isolated, 3) Topics are meaningful (relevant, interesting) for the learner, 4) Some
thematic organization to items is provided, such as through a story line or episode, and 5)
Tasks represent, or closely approximate, real world tasks.

Purposeful

A good test serves a purpose, either formative, to help learners improve their
performance or knowledge, or summative, to certify that learners have indeed learned
what they should have learned.

Objective

A good test is objective, meaning that two trained evaluators would obtain the same
result with the test.

Comprehensive

A good test tests on samples of all the course requirements.

Differentiating

A good test differentiates between those who know and those who do not know. This
means that competent learners score high on the test and incompetent learners score low.

Expected

A good test tests what is expected. Tell learners the objectives so they can practice what
is on the test.

Instructive

A good test is instructive because it tells the test-taker what was well done or what is in
need of improvement.

Useful

A good test is useful if it can be implemented with available resources.