RESUME OF 7 QUALITIES OF ASSESSMENT

Taught by

Dr. H.Abdullah Hasan. MSc

Arrange by Group 6:

Fauziyah Idriani
Ultarini
Yussi Mutia Puspitasari

QUALITIES OF LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT

1. PRACTICALITY
An effective test is practical. This means that it
o is not excessively expensive
o stays within appropriate time constraints
o is relatively easy to administer
o has a scoring/evaluation procedure that is specific and time-efficient

A test that is prohibitively expensive is impractical. A test of language proficiency

that takes a student five hours to complete is impractical. A test that takes a few minutes
for a student to take and several hours for an examiner to evaluate is impractical for most
classroom situations. The value and quality of a test sometimes hinge on practical
considerations.

2. RELIABILITY
A reliable test is consistent and dependable. If you give the same test to the same
student or matched students on two different occasions, the test should yield similar
results. There are some kinds of reliability:
a. Student - Related Reliability: the most common student-related reliability issue is
caused by temporary illness, anxiety, and other physical or psychological factors,
which may make an “observed” score deviate from someone’s “true” score.
b. Rater Reliability: human error, subjectively, and bias may enter into the scoring
process. Inter-rater reliability occurs when two or more scores give inconsistent
scores of the same test, possibly for lack of attention and experience to scoring
criteria. Intra-rater reliability is a common occurrence for classroom teachers
 because of unclear scoring criteria and bias toward particular “bad” and “good”
students.
c. Test Administration Reliability: unreliability may also result from the conditions in
which the test is administered. It may caused by the conditions of the test
administration such as temperature, the amount of light, even the condition of desks
and chairs.
d. Test Reliability: sometimes the nature of the test itself can cause measurement
errors. If a test is too long, test-takers may become tired by the time they reach the
later items and respond incorrectly.

3. VALIDITY
Validity is the extent to which inferences made from assessment results are
appropriate, meaningful, and useful in terms of the purpose of the assessment, in a simple
way it means an effective test.
a. Content – Related Evidence: if a test actually samples the subject matter about which
conclusions are to be drawn, and if it requires the test-taker to perform the behavior that
is being measured, it can claim content-related evidence of validity, often popularly
referred to as content validity.
b. Criterion – Related Evidence: Criterion-related validity is the extent to which the
“criterion” of the test has actually been reached
c. Construct – Related Validity: construct-related validity does not play as large a role
for classroom teachers. A construct is any theory, hypotheses, or model that attempts to
explain observed phenomena in our universe of perceptions. Constructs may or may not
be directly or empirically measured, their verification often requires inferential data.
d. Consequential Validity: consequential validity covers all the consequences of a test,
including such considerations as its accuracy in measuring intended criteria, its impact
on preparation of test-taker, its effect on the learner, and the (intended or unintended)
social sequences of a test’s interpretation and use.
e. Face Validity: face validity the extent to which “students view the assessment as
fair, relevant, and useful for improving learning”. It refers to the degree to which a test
looks right and appears to measure based on the subjective judgment of the examines
who take it.

4. AUTHENTICITY
Authenticity is the degree of correspondence of the characteristics of a given language
test task to the features of a target language task, and then suggest an agenda for identifying
those target language tasks and for transforming them into valid test items. In a test,
authenticity may be presented in the following ways:
o the language in the test is as natural as possible
o items are contextualized
 o topics are relevant and interesting for the learner
o has a story line or episode

5. WASHBACK
In large scale of assessment, washback generally refers to the effects the tests have on
instruction in terms of how students prepare for the test. Another viewpoint on washback is
achieved by a quick consideration of differences between formative and summative tests.
Formative test is providing washback in the form of information to the learners on progress
toward goals. But teacher might be tempted to feel summative test which provide assessment
at the end of a course program.

6. ETHICS AND FAIRNESS

FAIRNESS
An assessment procedure needs to be fair. Students need to know exactly what the learning
targets are and what method of assessment will be used. Assessment has to be viewed as an
opportunity to learn rather than an opportunity to weed out poor and slow learners. Fairness also
implies freedom from teacherstereo-typing. Stereotyping means boys are better than girls in
mathematics or girls are better than boys in

ETHICS

Ethics in assessment is the term "ethics" refers to questions of right and wrong. The teachers
need to ask themselves if it is right to assess a specific knowledge or investigate a certain question.
Ethics in assessment.

Here are some situations in which assessment may not be called for:

• Requiring students to answer checklist of their sexual fantasies

• Asking elementary pupils to answer sensitive questions without consent of their parents

• Testing the mental abilities of pupils using an instrument whose validity and reliability are.

ETHICS IN ASSESSMENT ETHICAL ISSUES IN ASSESSMENT

• The fundamental responsibility of a teacher. Naturally, no teacher would want this happen
to any of his/her student.
• Test results and assessment results are confidential results. Results should be
communicated to the students in a way that other students would not be in possession of
information
• Deception. There are instances in which it is necessary to conceal the objective of the
assessment from the students in order to ensure fair and impartial results.
• Temptation to assist certain individuals in class during assessment or testing is ever
present. It is best if the teacher does not administer the test himself if he believes
• The fundamental responsibility of a teacher. Naturally, no teacher would want this to
happen to any of his/her student.
• Test results and assessment results are confidential results. Results should be
communicated to the students in a way that other students would not be in
 • Deception. There are instances in which it is necessary to conceal the objective of the
assessment from the students in order to ensure fair and impartial
• Temptation to assist certain individuals in class during assessment or testing is ever
present. It is best if the teacher does not administer the test himself if he believes

7. INTERACTIVENESS
Bachman (1996 in Language Testing in Practice: designing and developing useful language
tests) present the concept of interactiveness which mainly describes the relation or interaction between
the test taker and the characteristics of the task given in a test or in real life communication.

According to Bachman and Palmer (1999) interactiveness was “the involvement of the test
taker’s individual characteristics in accomplishing a test task” (p.25) In Theoretical Framework
qualities/ principles and their significance for the assessment process in SLA interactiveness it should
be known if a test motivated students sufficiently, if the language used in the test's questions and
instructions was appropriate for the students' level, if the test's items represented the language used in
the classroom, as well as the target language. All these points represented the crucial elements that
affected a test's interactiveness.

Source:
Bachman, L. F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.