Bachman (1996) stated that the most important quality in order to design and develop a language test is its usefulness. The author explains usefulness is the combination of different qualities that a test must have, this characteristics are test reliability, construct validity, authenticity, interactiveness, impact and practicality. The authors perpend three principles as a guideline needed in the creation of tests. The first principle establishes that the overall usefulness of the test must be maximized; this means that the real usefulness of a test as a whole is more important than any other individual quality. The second principle explains that what it has to be evaluated is the effect of the qualities combined, qualities cannot be evaluated individually. Finally Bachman (1996) says that the third principle to be considered is that qualities must be evaluated for its specific testing context, the appropriate balance cannot be assessed in general.
Following up, Bachman (1996) takes into account six qualities considered essential a test development. The first of them is Reliability; this term is defined as consistency of measurement. A test score might be consistent amid different parameters of testing contexts. In conclusion Reliability can be seen as a function of consistency of scores from one group of test tasks to another.
The second quality settled by Bachman (1996) is called Construct validity. This term points out to the meaningfulness and appropriateness of the interpretations made based on test scores. The score becomes the indicator of specific abilities of the language because it provides real evidence about what has been learned.
The third quality mentioned by Bachman (1996) is Authenticity, and it is explained as...
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...d, the author also says that a good test should not be expensive or time consuming and should not be difficult to handle.
The next principle stated by Brown (2004) is Reliability. As the author claims a reliable test is consistent and dependable. This means that a test should show similar results even if it’s taken or given in different moments.
Finally, the last principle explained by Brown (2004) is Validity. A test is valid if its measure what is meant to measure. Another aspect included in the validity of a test is the capacity to evaluate how well the learners have learnt the course contents. Validity can be divided in three more terms and as it is mentioned previously by the other authors those grades are Content validity, Face validity and Construct validity. In this case Brown (2004) and Coombe (2007) give similar definitions to the three grades of validity.
“Reliability refers to consistency in terms of how well items in an instrument correlate with one another, providing justification for the creation of a scale or index (DeVillis, 2012), or consistency
Even with material being taught incessantly, standardized tests can not accurately measure a student’s ability. The tests are “single-target—meaning that every student, no matter what level of achievement or ability, course selection, or cu...
Young, K. (n.d.). Pros: Standardized Testing. Michigan State University. Est. 1855. East Lansing, Michigan USA. Retrieved December 2, 2010, from https://www.msu.edu/~youngka7/pros.html
Tests cannot always measure everything that needs to be measured on a course or what a st...
Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 1999. Web. 10 April 2014
“One test result is the worth one-thousand expert opinions.” The result of standardized testing can establish many results but do they imply the true capabilities of a student or their ability to study for the test. I will discuss in this paper what the arguments on both sides are for standardized testing.
In addition to logical consistency, testability is an important piece when evaluating a theory. According to Akers & Sellers (2013), “a theory must be testable by objective, repeatable evidence” (p.5); thus, if the theory is not testable then it has no scientific value. There are several reasons why a theory might not be testable; such as its concepts may not be observable or reportable events and tautology. Tautology refers to a statement or hypothesis that is tr...
the relationship between an assessment and the construct (“personal psychological characteristic that cannot be observed directly but which is assumed to exist”) it purports to measure; and the interpretations of the test scores based on the assessment- the so-called validity argument.
Validity is essentially the degree to which a conception is founded and parallels accurately to the real world. Validity is the tool that measures what the particular research was anticipated to measure (Schmitt & Brown, 2012). There are several different types of validity but the ones that will be discussed in this paper are concurrent and predictive. Concurrent validity is taking an already validated point and testing it with another measurement tool. This means that there was already a hypothesis proven right or wrong and now the researcher will be testing this same hypothesis but will being using another type of tool to see if the result...
These concerns are the problem of 'generality ' and the problem of 'extent '. Before these concerns can be understood, we need to understand the two forms of belief forming processes, namely, belief forming process 'type ' and belief forming process 'token '. A 'type ' is a form of belief forming process whereas a 'token ' is individual sequence of events that lead to a certain belief formation. In other words a token is an instance of type. Between them only belief forming process type is repeatable and hence can be used for reliability test.
However, both characteristics of reliability and validity are important and can be used in many studies, such as the self-rating and other- ratings of daily behavior. Reliability refers to the internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, test-retest, and standardized scoring. In other words reliability means that study scores have to be constant with repeatability of the findings. Validity also refers to convergent validity, discriminant validity, and predictive validity. Validity refers to the reliability or credibility of the research. If the findings in a study, reliability and validity are valid they must be reliable.
7. Reliability - Reliability is the degree to which a test can be repeated with the same results. Tests with high reliability yield scores that are less susceptible to insignificant or random changes in the test taker or the testing environment.
Kohn suggests that if standardized testing is continued to be used, there needs to be something done to make sure that it is not as damaging to children. One way this can be done is by making sure that the tests have no time limit and do not include multiple c...
The ability to test a student’s language skills is essential to have as a teacher. Over the years, classrooms have become much more diverse with a wide variety of impairments being presented on a daily basis. Often, these disabilities contain a language impairment that appears as a side effect of the main disability. Unfortunately, assessing language is not as easy as one may think because it is not clearly defined and understood. Kuder (2008) writes that “…language is not a unitary phenomenon- it is ‘multidimensional, complex, and dynamic; it involves many interrelated processes and abilities; and it changes from situation to situation” (pg. 274). Language also develops at different times for different individuals, thus making language assessment an even harder task for test administrators to grade and evaluate. In order to further understand the language impairment that students present, teachers need to be aware of appropriate language tests that could be administered. In order to assure that the best language test is being issued to a student, several various tests exist to choose from. To test a student’s overall language capability, a comprehensive language test, such as the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) or the Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS), could be administered. If a teacher wanted to test a specific language skill such as pragmatics, phonology, syntax, or semantics, the teacher would need to find the best test for the student’s unique situation.
Assessments need to be reliable and valid, meaning that in order for information obtained by assessments to be useful, the assessments need to meet certain requirements. Reliability means that assessments need to be consistent. You can make an assessment reliable by giving different forms of the same test. The reliability of the assessment is confirmed