Course Name: Teaching Testing and Assessment

Professor: Dr. Mohamadi

Name of student: Mehdi Karimi Soofloo

Validity

It is not enough by itself to show via reliability or dependability a test does a good job
because validity is a different and equally essential matter. Test validity will be specified
here as the degree to which a test measure claimed or intended to be validity
measurement is especially relevant when it is involved in the decisions that teachers
make about their students on a regular basis. Traditionally, three key methods have
been used to evaluate validity: validity of text, validity of construct and validity relevant
to criteria. Only the material and construct validity strategy is applicable to CRTs, since
these two approaches are not based on the severity of the test scores variance. The third
approach, which is criterion-related validity, does not lend itself to examining the
validity of CRTs because it is based on correlation analysis.

Content validity and other types of validity

One problem that may occur when looking solely at the quality of content is that the
success of the specific group of students that took the test can be ignored. In the same
way that a test can only be said to be appropriate for a particular category of students (or
rather similar students), a test can only be said to be accurate for different purposes for
evaluating specific types of students. To put it another way, the students who are tested
on a test in the development process become part of that purpose's definition, because
language tests must be designed with particular students in mind.As a consequence, a
test can only be considered accurate and true for a given context (or for very similar
contexts) and purpose. In a way, the context is defined by the type of decision involved,
the type of student involved and the aims of the study. For example, the test designed to
assess the reading and listening skills in engineering-English for UCLA students would
not be a legitimate assess to evaluate hotel workers' English abilities. Once test
developers have defined validity of content, they must explore other validity arguments
immediately, those related to the success of real live students on study.

Construct validity

The requirement for recognizing the validity of the construct is psychological construct
that considers it an attribute, talent, capacity, or competence. The word "Love" is a term
for a very complicated collection of mental activity that is going on in the human mind,
which is hard to observe. Love is seen as an example of a psychological construction.
Such other psychological constructs are aptitude, intellect, overall language skills as
such presentation is often indirect and the outcome must be interpreted with great care.

Inferential-groups studies

are designed to compare the performance of two groups on a test which is called
differential-groups studies.In reality, the tester is attempting to demonstrate that the
test scores discriminate between groups: one group that obviously has the construct to
be calculated and another that clearly does not. In addition, a differential-group
experiment was set up to answer the validity issue, both at the level of the total test score
and at the level of individual item sort. The question of validity that we needed to
answer was whether or not our test was appropriate for the purpose of evaluating overall
skill for standard-referenced decision. Also involved were two academic Majors:
engineering and non-engineering. In this differential-group analysis four groups were
developed on the basis of their majors and nationalities.

Intervention studies

Setting up intervention research is another way to address the same collection of

validity. It is similar to differential-group studies but is performed with only one student
group. Strategy in intervention studies is often the one which makes the most sense in
the teaching situation in the classroom and is especially well suited for criterion-
referenced testing where the aim is to evaluate the learning. The rationale of the
decision to perform an intervention study is based on the premise that there is
something students actually do.

Criterion- related validity: a traditional strategy for NRTs:

involves demonstrating validity by showing that the scores on the test being validated
correlate highly with some other, well-respected measure of the same construct.The test
developers will calculate a coefficient of correlation for the relationship between the two
sets of scores and assess the degree to which the scores on the two tests go together or
overlap. In reality, it would appear that the scores on the two tests spread the students
out in almost exactly the same way.

One source of uncertainty resulting from reports on criterion-related validity studies is

that it is often referred to as concurrent validity or predictive.

Concurrent validity is validity similar to criterion, which implies that both tests were
performed roughly at the same time as in the case of TOEFL.Predictive validity is also a
type of criterion-related validity, but this time at different times the two sets of numbers
arc obtained. In reality the object of the test should logically be predictive for predictive
validity.
Basically, the validity of the criteria is a subset of the ideas discussed under the validity
of the construct. Demonstration of criterion-related validity typically often requires
developing an experiment, but in this case one group of students undertakes two tests:
the latest test being created by the testers and another test which is already a well-
established measure of the construct concerned.

Restrictions of range and NRT validity:

Testers should usually avoid slimming down the range of capabilities in any category
being tested, unless they have a very good reason to do so. The sample itself may have
drastic effects on the study if a tester wants to base a correlation analysis on a sample
with relatively homogeneous language skills.

The skill levels are usually expressed in both normal and range deviations. Both
numbers further down the columns get much smaller. Also notice the very dramatic
relationship between this systemic limitation of range and both the coefficients of
reliability and validity.The point is that descriptive statistics should always be analyzed
when performing these studies. And testers should look more than just at the
coefficients of reliability and validity, but also the sum of scores dispersal as shown by
the spectrum and standard deviation.

Standard setting:

The extent to which the test is reliable for decision-making is also related to validity. The
accuracy of a decision is a question of test consistency and can be improved by using the
SEM /CI as part of the decision-making process.

The default setting5 is here described as the process of deciding where and how to make
cut-points. Decisions must be taken at least partly in all language programs based on the
test scores. Standards have to be set for making these decisions. Five types of decisions
essentially include performance standards; teachers and administrators often have to
determine if the student should be:

(A) admitted to an institution,

(b) put at the primary, intermediate or advanced level of a program,

(c) identified as understanding those goals and overlooking others,

(d) progressed to the next stage of training, or

(e) accredited as having successfully accomplished the goals of a course or programme.

Thus standards could be defined as the performance rates set for each of the five types
of decisions listed above.
Quality has been a major concern in the area of educational measurement for many
decades. One problem with expectations is that they always seem very arbitrarily set.

Standards and test validity:

Standards are also directly related to the validity of the test, in which decisions about
where to place the cut-point often depend on the purpose of the test.Validity is a
characteristic of the scores on a test when used for a specific purpose.

The washback effect:

This is the extent to which a test influences the curriculum related to it.For example, it is
the impact of testing in the language classroom on the teaching and learning processes.

Variety of washback concepts :

• Relationships between research and learning.

• Measuring impact on teaching and learning;

• Using external language assessments to control and guide the learning of foreign
languages, this practice is the product of strong external testing authority and its
significant effect on the lives of test takers.

•· A common term in applied linguistics refers to the degree to which the

implementation and use of a test affects language teachers and learners to do things that
would not otherwise encourage or hinder the learning of languages.