Validity/Reliability
The extent to which a test corresponds to the content being assessed and the conclusions and inferences are appropriate, meaningful and truthful
What is validity?
The pattern for eliciting information about a student’s language knowledge, understanding, or ability.
What is the Stimulus-Response pattern?
A question type that has a stem and at least four possible answers.
What is a Multiple Choice question?
Provide motivation to learn, help review and organize content, give feedback about strengths and weaknesses
What are benefits of tests for learners?
Informal, often unannounced, brief, easy to score, narrow focus
What are characteristics of quizzes?
A type of validity which measures the quality of a test based on its comparison to another similar test.
What is concurrent validity?
The combination of language content and language domain that is being assessed in a test item.
What is the Skills-Component pattern?
The most common type of alternate-response questions.
What are True-False questions?
Opportunity to check for alignment of goals and teaching, monitor student progress, give feedback on how well material was taught.
What are benefits of tests for teachers?
Lengthy, somewhat removed from time of instruction, variety of items, broad focus.
What are characteristics of tests?
The precision and consistency of a measurement instrument.
What is reliability?
Stimulus-response pattern in which the teacher tells the student to draw a red apple.
What is an Oral Stimulus-Nonverbal Response?
Easy to score, easy to create, require less time for test-takers to process.
What are advantages of True-False questions?
Reviewing test results as a learning opportunity.
What are benefits of tests for both learners and teachers?
The degree of correspondence of the characteristics of a given language test task to the features of a target language task.
What is authenticity?
A type of reliability that indicates the test performance is stable over time: the same or similar results are found when the same group of learners take the same test again
What is test-retest reliability?
The test item tells the student to identify in writing as many items in a photograph of a teenager’s messy bedroom.
What is a Writing-Vocabulary Skills/Component pattern?
Negative washback, facilitate cheating, labor intensive to create, test writers deliberately try to confuse students.
What are disadvantages of Multiple Choice items?
Using tests as punishment, testing instead of teaching, using tests as only criteria for grading.
What are some questionable practices in testing?
Cost of designing and making and administering the test, the amount of time for administering the test, clarity of instructions for administration and scoring the test.
What are factors to consider for determining the practicality of a test?
Indicates that the test is an accurate reflection of an underlying theory of which is purported to measure.
What is construct validity?
The Stimulus-Response pattern that hardly ever exists without being combined with other forms of stimuli-responses.
What is Nonverbal Stimulus-Nonverbal Response?
The kind of True-False statement that better distinguishes students who know from those who do not know the information.
What is a false statement?
Using tests to help students improve skills, providing clear criteria for students prior to taking tests, returning test promptly.
What are some promising practices for classroom tests?
The effect of testing on teaching and learning which can be both positive or negative.
What is washback?