SECOND LANGUAGE

ASSESSMENT
ASSESSMENT
 Misuses of Test
(Survey of EFL teachers & Students in Israeli Public
School, Shohamy 1985)

■ Used as punishment
■ Only measure for grading
■ Do not reflect what is taught
■ Returned with a lack of corrections or
explanation
 Misuses of Test
(Survey of EFL teachers & Students in Israeli Public
School, Shohamy 1985)

■ Reflected only one testing method

■ Lack of teacher confidence in their own tests
■ Students were not adequately trained to take
the tests
■ There’s a susbstantial delay in returning the
tests
 Constructive View of Language
Testing, happens when…
■ An opportunity for interaction between teacher and
students
■ Students are judged on the basis of knowledge they
have
■ The tests are intended to help students improve
their skills
 Constructive View of Language
Testing
■ The criteria for success on the tests are clear to the
students
■ Students receive a grade for their performance on a
set of tests representing different testing methods
■ The test takers are trained in how to take the tests
■ The tests are returned promptly
■ The results are discussed
THEORETICAL
FOUNDATIONS
 Types of Language Assessment
Instruments
■ Administrative
– Assessment
– Placement
– Exemption
– Certification
– promotion
 Types of Language Assessment
Instruments
■ Instructional
– Diagnosis
– Evidence of progress
– Feedback to the respondent
– Evaluation of teaching or curriculum
 Types of Language Assessment
Instruments
■ Research Purposes
– Evaluation
– Experimentation
– Knowledge about language learning and
language use
 Distinction in Testing

■Norm-referenced
■Criterion-referenced
 Distinction in Testing

■ Norm-referenced
– A test can be used to compare a
respondent with other respondents.
 Distinction in Testing

■ Criterion-referenced
– A test can be used to see whether a
respondent has met certain instructional
objectives or criteria.
Item is a specific task to perform, and
can assess one or more points or
objectives.
Items of similar kind may also be
grouped together to form subtests
within a given test.
 Classifying an Item
■ The Skill Tested
– Listening and speaking (receptive skills)
– Speaking and writing (productive skills)
– Nonverbal skills (both)
■ The Nature of the Item
– Discrete would test one point or objective
– Integrative would test more than one point of
objective at a time
 Classifying an Item
– Objective
■ Multiple choice
– Subjective
■ Free composition
■ The intellectual operation required
– Knowledge retrieval (bringing to mind the
appropriate material)
 Classifying an Item
– Comprehension (understanding the basic
meaning of the material)
– Application (applying knowledge of the elements
of language and comprehension to how they
interrelate in the production of correct oral or
written message)
– Analysis (breaking down a message into its
constituent part in order to make explicit
relationships between ideas_
 Classifying an Item
– Synthesis (arranging part so as to produce a
pattern not clearly there before, such as
effectively organizing ideas in a written
composition)
– Evaluation (making quantitative and qualitative
judgments about material)
■ The tested response behavior
– Respondent may be tested for accuracy om
pronunciation or grammar.
 Classifying an Item
■ Characteristics of Respondents
– Personal Characteristics (Age, sex, and native
language)
– Topical knowledge
– Affective schemata
– Language ability
 TEST
CONSTRUCTION &
ADMINISTRATION
 Inventory of Constructing
1st

2nd
Objectives an Item
Bank
 Constructing an Item bank
■ Descriptive information for each item
– The skill or combination of skills tested
– The language elements involved
– The item-elicitation and item response formats
– Instructions on how to present the item
– The section of the book or part of the course that
the item relates to
– The time it took to write the item
 Inventory of Constructing Test format

2nd

3rd
1st
Objectives an Item
Bank
 Instruction Scoring Reliability
4th

5th

6th
 Realibility
Precision as a measuring instrument
■ Test factors
– The extent of the sampling of the objective, the
degree of ambiguity of the items and restrictions
on freedom of response, the clarity and
explicitness of the instructions, the quality of the
layout, etc.
■ Situational Factors
 Realibility
■ Individual Factors
– Transient
■ Physical or psychological state of mind
– Stable factors
■ Mechanical skills, IQ, ability to use English and
experience with such tests
 Validity
7th
 Validity
7th
 Validity
Whether the test actually measures what is puports to
measure
■ Face Validity
– whether the test looks as if it is measuring what
it is supposed to.
■ Content Validity
– The adequacy of sampling of content or
objectives in a test
 Validity
■ Criterion-related
– Concurrent
■ The test results are compared with results from
another test given at about the same time.
– Predictive
■ The test results are compared with results from a
another test or another type of measure obtained
at a later date.
■ Construct
– The degree to which scores on a measure permit
inferences about underlying traits.
 Validity
■ Convergent
– Testing the same phenomenon in a variety of
different wa
 Validity Item
7th

8th
Analaysis
 Item Analysis
■ Piloting the test
■ Item difficulty
– Proportion of correct responses to a test item
– if 15 out of 20 answers correctly, the difficulty is
75%
■ Item discrimination
– How well an item performs in separating the
better students from the poorer ones