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The Different Types of Tests
Proficency tests
Are designed to measure people’s ability in a language. It is based on a specification of what candidates have to be able to do in the language in order to be considered proficient.
For example: The different tests of English that we had to take to get into the bachelor’s. Such as reading and comprehension tests, speaking, fluency and writing.
Achievement tests
In contrast to proficiency tests, achievement tests are indirectly related to language courses, their purpose being to establish how successful individual students, groups of students, or the courses themselves have been in achieving objectives. They are of two kinds: final achievement tests and progress achievement tests.
Example: The test that is applied at the end of the semester for each of the languages that are being taught in Centro de Idiomas (For French, Japanese, English, German, etc.)
Diagnostic Tests
Diagnostic tests are used to identify learners´ strengths and weaknesses. They are intended primarily to ascertain what learning still needs to take place.
Example: making the students write a page about any subject, to know if they have mastered the verb conjugation.
Placement Tests
As their names suggests, are intended to provide information that will help to place students at the stage (or in the part) of the teaching programme most appropriate to their abilities. Typically they are used to assign students to classes at different levels.
For example:The test that the community in general have to take at Centro de Idiomas for English mainly to know in which level they could be put in.
Types of testing
Direct Testing
Testing is said to be direct when it requires the candidate to perform precisely the skill that we wish to measure. The tasks, and the tests that are used, should be as authentic as possible. The fact that candidates are aware that they are in a test situation means that the tasks cannot be really authentic.
Example: (Writing) making the students write an essay for homework, this way they cannot know that they are being evaluated in another way
Direct testing is easier to carry out when it is intended to measure the productive skills of speaking and writing. The very acts of speaking and writing provide us with information about the candidate´s ability.
Indirect Testing
Indirect testing attempts to measure the abilities that underlie the skills in which we are interested.
The main problem with indirect tests is that the relationship between performance on them and performance of the skills in which we usually are more interested tends to be rather weak in strength and uncertain in nature.
Discrete Point Testing
Discrete point testing, refers to the testing of one element at a time, item by item. This might, for example, take the form of a series of items, each testing a particular grammatical structure.
Integrative Testing
Integrative testing, by contrast requires the candidate to combine many language elements in the completion of a task.
Example: Conversation sessions in which different abilities are being evaluated such as: fluency, verb conjugation, sentence integration, etc.
Norm Referenced Testing
It relates the candidate´s performance to that of other candidates. We are told directly what the student is capable of doing in the language.
Example: The test that in general the whole community has to take in order to enter college. To determine who will stay in each of the Faculties they relate the candidate’s performance to that of other candidates.
Criterion Referenced Testing
The purpose of criterion- referenced tests is to classify people according to whether or not they are able to perform some task or set of tasks satisfactorily. The tasks are set, and the performances are evaluated. It does not matter in principle whether all the candidates are successful, or none of the candidates is successful.
Example: Everyday tests that we take during each semester in the bachelor’s this would determine if we are capable or not to stay in the bachelor’s
Objective Testing
The distinction here is between methods of scoring, and nothing else. If no judgement is required on the part of the scorer, then the scoring is objective.
Subjective Testing
A multiple choice test, with the correct responses unambiguously identified, would be a case in point. If judgement is called for, the scoring is said to be subjective.
Computer Adaptive Testing
Computer adaptive testing offers a potentially more efficient way of collecting information on people´s ability. All candidates are presented initially with an item of average difficulty. Those who respond correctly are presented with a more difficult item; those who respond incorrectly are presented with an easier item. The computer goes on this way to present individual candidates with items that are appropriate for their apparent level of ability, raising or lowering the level of ability is achieved.
Example: The TOEFL test
GABRIELA AIDEE SANCHEZ ZAMORANO
DENISE VILLALOBOS HERNÁNDEZ
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