Language Testing and

Assessment: A Comprehensive
Guide
Ch.1: Preliminaries and Seminal Issues
 Chapter Highlights

01 | 02 | 03 |
Formal vs. informal
Test, measurement, assessment Direct vs. indirect assessment
evaluation, and assessment Formative vs. summative Explicit vs. implicit assessment
assessment
04 | 05 | 06 |
Norm-referenced tests vs. Language testing paradigms Features of a good test
criterion-referenced tests
Performance-referenced tests vs.
system-referenced tests
Teaching and Testing: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Reciprocal relationship
- Any shift of focus or paradigm shift in teaching has led to a revision in testing.
In a similar manner, Cheng (2005) maintained that language testing is pivotal to
language teaching.
- Davies (1990): Three central language-learning issues:

1. Communicative language testing

2. Testing language for specific purposes
3. The unitary competence hypothesis
Teaching and testing can have many benefits for
each other!

By using tests, teachers obtain feedback on the

students' weaknesses and strengths as well as their
progress and achievement in the course. Additionally,
the results of tests provide teachers with feedback
concerning the effectiveness of the approaches they
have employed in their teaching.
 language teaching and testing are two sides of the same coin!
The functions of tests and testing go to extremes
and far beyond being predominantly aimed at
evaluating and measuring the learners'
attainment.
- They have the power and influence to
change and shape the test-taker’s behavior.
- They can even change one's life and have the
ability to shape his/her future simply by
their results.
- Spolsky and Shohamy's (1999):"a test can
help some people but cause harm when its
results are misapplied or its aims distorted".
-One of the offshoots of this distortion in the
aims of tests is "washback," a technical concept
utilized to explain the impact of testing on
various aspects of teaching programs, which
has been explored from various viewpoints by
language testing researchers throughout the
world (Ali & Hamid, 2020).
 Tests, Measurement, Evaluation, and Assessment
Measurement Assessment
Test The process of gathering, analyzing, - an ongoing process of ensuring
1. as the narrowest of all and interpreting information regarding that course objectives are
refers to any procedure used to the degree of achievement of achieved.
measure an ability. instructional objectives on the part of - It is a related sequence of
2. "a measurement instrument the students (Bachman, 1990) measures utilized to determine a
designed to elicit a specific complex characteristic of an
sample of an individual's individual or a group
behavior" (Bachman, 1990, p.
20).
Evaluation - aimed at understanding and
improving individuals' learning.
“The systematic gathering of information to
3. It necessarily quantifies the Unlike evaluation, which is
make decisions" (Bachman, 1990, p. 21).
characteristics of individuals judgmental, assessment is
Therefore, when the results of tests are used for
according to explicit rules and diagnostic in nature and tries to
the purpose of making decisions, evaluation'
procedures. figure out areas of improvement.
comes into play.
 Formal Assessment versus Informal Assessment

As pinpointed by Brown and Abeywickrama (2010), formal

assessments are "exercises or procedures specifically designed to tap
into a storehouse of skills and knowledge" (p. 6).
They are systematic and planned sampling techniques developed to
provide teacher and student with an evaluation of student achievement.

Informal assessment can take various forms including incidental,

unplanned comments and responses, coaching, and other spontaneous
feedback to the student. As a case in point, teachers' comments such
as "good job! and "good work!" are samples of informal assessment.
 Formative Assessment versus Summative Assessment
Formative assessment is the frequent, interactive
assessment of students' progress and understanding
to identify learning needs and adjust teaching
appropriately (Wiliam, 2011).
It is also helpful in reflecting the achievement of
students and teachers.
Wiliam (2011) summarized formative assessment in three steps:
1. monitoring (Is learning taking place?),
2. diagnosis (What is not being learned?),
3. action (What to do about it?).
1. Because of these remedial features,
Wiliam (2006) refers to formative
assessment as a process that
determines and shapes students'
learning.
2. formative assessment is an ongoing
process, which remains active even
when a student responds to a
question, offers a comment, or tries
out a new word or structure.
Summative assessment intends to record or
report the students' achievement. It is the
reflection of what they have learned from the
course.
According to Brown (2004), a summation of
what the student has learned suggests looking
back and taking stock of how well that student
has accomplished the objectives but does not
necessarily manifest the ways to future
progress.
1. Summative assessment as a type of evaluation,
which informs the teachers about students'
success or failure in their learning process
based on a numerical scale.
2. This assessment type treats teachers as the
main authority and only shows the students'
progress in the past.
 Direct testing includes a test, which requires the testee to perform

exactly the skill being measured. It has more to do with productive

Direct Testing skills than receptive skills, e.g. oral interview tests for evaluating
versus
Indirect Testing speaking ability and essay writing tasks for measuring writing skills.
Indirect testing takes advantage of a test, usually on paper, to

measure enabling skills, e.g. multiple-choice test of students' grammar

skill, a cloze test, and a questionnaire on teachers' assessment

literacy.
 Explicit Assessment
versus
Implicit Assessment
Explicit mode occurs as a distinct activity or event and learners are aware
that they are being assessed. This mode of assessment is continuous and
cyclical, separate from teaching, used mostly for summative decisions, and
both teachers and students are aware of the assessment .

Implicit mode is blended with instruction and takes place continuously in the
classroom without learners being aware of the assessment (Bachman & Palmer,
2010). It is continuous and cyclical, is a part of classroom teaching, and is used
mostly for formative decisions; students are unaware of the assessment activity, and
it is sometimes called dynamic assessment.
 Norm-Referenced Testing versus Criterion-Referenced Testing
- NRTS are intended to underscore achievement -
differences between and among students in
order to yield a reliable rank order of students
across a continuum of achievement from high- -
achievers to low-achievers .
- The content of an NRT test is chosen
according to how well it ranks students.
- NRTS compare an examinee's performance to -
that of other examinees. Standardized
examinations like TOEFL, IELTS, GRE, and
SAT.
CRTs determine "what test-takers can do
and what they know, not how they compare
to others“.
They demonstrate how well students are
doing in relation a pre-specified
performance level and a pre-determined set
of educational goals.
The content of a CRT test is determined by
how well it matches the learning outcomes
deemed most important.
Performance-Referenced Tests versus System-Referenced Tests

Two possible approaches to task-based assessment

System- referenced tests try to tap a specific psychological construct, which

lies beneath a language task, without examining the execution of the task
itself. These tests are construct-oriented, general, and based on an explicit
theory of language proficiency.
Performance-referenced tests mirror as closely as possible the conditions of a
future language task, and they consequently enjoy high face validity.
Nevertheless, generalizing to other task performances or L2 abilities from
such performance-referenced tests is problematic. These tests are specific,
content-oriented, and based on a work-sample approach to test design.
 Performance-referenced testing is most evidently related to
ends-focused and analytic syllabi, whereas system-referenced
testing is thoroughly related to aspects of means-focused and
synthetic syllabi.
Edumetric Tests versus Psychometric Tests

A psychometric test is a test, which has been mainly designed to maximize

individual differences on the variable being measured, resulting in scores that
can be interpreted only in terms of comparing them with the scores of an
appropriate comparison group on the same test.
An edumetric test is designed chiefly to yield scores that are meaningful
without reference to the performance of others. Although many educators
may not be very familiar with the exact terminologies as such, they know
enough of their tangible examples, namely NRTS and CRTs, respectively.
 Interim Assessment

By definition, interim assessment refers to the

during-the-program evaluation, which aims at
identifying the weaknesses of the program
(Nodoushan, 2011). It is a classroom-level
assessment, which can identify the gaps in
students' learning and predict their future
performance on tests.
 Language Testing Paradigms
Include tasks that approximate to
Discrete linguistic those faced by the learners in real-life
points related to situations.
the four language the importance of the context,
psychometric-
pre-scientific skill areas authenticity of tasks, and genuineness
sociolingustic of texts is recognized

-Integrative testing
- essay-translation era psychometric- communicative
structuralist concerned with the total
- lack of theory in
communicative effect of
language testing
discourse and meaning and
practice
argued for the testing of
language in context
 Maryam Maghrour

10/016/2023
Date