Assist. Prof. Dr.

Sevgi Şahin

İÖABT
FIELD EDUCATION
KNOWLEDGE
(METHODOLOGY)
 LANGUAGE
TESTING &
ASSESSMENT
 •Testing: A method of

1.Key Terms measuring learners’

performance through
tests usually at the end
of a learning period,
such as unit-test, mid- •Assessment:
term-test, semester-test •collecting continuous
etc. of information about
learners’ learning
progress to improve
teaching and learning
without any purpose
for grading.
•Evaluation:
•an overall judgment
about learners’
performance &
achievements at the
end of the
term/course
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2. WHY DO WE TEST and ASSESS?

• to see learners’ performance.

• to discover what the learners know and can do at a certain stage of the learning
process.
• to increase their own effectiveness in teaching process and to ensure that learners
benefit from the lesson to a great extent.
• to diagnose students’ strengths and needs
• to communicate learning expectations
• to provide feedback on student learning
• to inform and guide instruction
• Motivate and focus students’ attention and effort
• to provide information for administrators regarding whether the program they have
planned are working well
• to inform parents about their children’s performance
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3. TYPES OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
• 1. Teacher’s observations: Teacher’s observations of the learners’ overall performance
or achievement

• 2. Continuous assessment: Weekly quizes

• 3. Self-assessment and peer assessment

• 4. Project work: It requires students to complete a set of tasks designed to explore a

certain idea or concept.

• 5. Portfolios: It is a purposeful collection of materials assembled over a period of time

by a learner to provide evidence of skills, abilities and attitudes.

• 6. Learner Diaries: The records written by learners on their language learning

experience over a period of time.

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4. TYPES OF TESTS AND TESTING
4.1. PROGNOSTIC TESTS:
4.1.1. Selection Tests: 4.1.2. Placement 4.1.3. Aptitude 4.1.4 Diagnostic
• tests administered to tests: tests: tests:
the students to • tests designed • tests used to • tests designed
accept into a to arrange discover the to discover what
particular program. students into potential learners can do
• to be accepted to the groups, usually areas/skills that and cannot do
program, one needs by establishing students are in the language
to score higher than their relative likely to be good before teaching
the other candidates. language levels at in learning starts.
to group languages.
students with • measure
the same probable
proficiency level learning ability
in the future

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4. TYPES OF TESTS AND TESTING
4.2. ATTAINMENT TESTS:
4.2.1. Achievement tests: 4.2.2. Proficiency tests: 4.2.3. Progress tests:
• tests used to evaluate • tests administered • tests used to check
how much of the syllabus often in prep. schools, the progress of the
the learners have learnt at the end of the term students rather than
or how much of the to evaluate their the overall
objectives of a lesson, achievements in L2 in achievements
unit have been reached. general.
• They tend to be
integrative.

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4. TYPES OF TESTS AND TESTING
4.3.1. Criterion- • 4.3.2. Norm- 4.3.3. Individual-
referenced referenced referenced
assessment: tests in assessment: tests assessment:
which students are designed to based on how well
assessed according to
a list of criteria measure how the the learner is
prepared according to performance of a performing
learning objectives particular student relative to his or
differs from the her own previous
performance of performance.
another student
whose scores are
given as the norm.

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4. TYPES OF TESTS AND TESTING
4.4.1. Discrete point tests: 4.4.2. Integrative tests:
• aim to provide very specific • aim to measure wide
information about learners’ range of language skills
abilities on grammar, rather than isolated parts
pronunciation, spelling, of the language.
vocabulary in an isolated
way. (e.g., Dictation, proficiency
tests)

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4. TYPES OF TESTS AND TESTING
4.5.1. Direct testing: 4.5.2. Indirect testing:
• tests in which students’ • tests through which
targeted skills and
teachers infer that
knowledge are observed
directly to assess their learning has occurred,
performance. yet they cannot pinpoint
• They require students to that learning or skill.
perform the skills to be
measured.

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4. TYPES OF TESTS AND TESTING

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5. CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST-1
• Reliability: the consistency with which a test can be scored –from person to person, time to
time, or place to place.

• Inter-rater reliability occurs when two or more scorers yield consistent scores of the same test.

• Intra-rater reliability is an internal factor, a common occurrence for classroom teachers.

Violation of such reliability can occur in cases of unclear scoring criteria, fatigue, bias toward
particular ‘’good’’ and ‘’bad’’ students, or simple carelessness.

• Test Administration Reliability: Unreliability may be caused by:

• Street noise outside, Building, Photocopying variations, Variations in temperature, Amount
of light, Condition of desk and chair.

• Student-Related Reliability: Some factors may make an «observed» score deviate from one’s
«true» score:
• Temporary illness, Fatigue, A ‘’bad-day’’, Anxiety, Other physical or psychological factors, Test
wiseness, Strategies for efficient test taking

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5. CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST-2
• Validity: the principle that a test needs to measure what it needs to test

• Content validity: the degree to which a test is a representative sample of the content of a lesson.
• Construct validity: It’s more about «how to teach / how to test».
• For example; You have chosen items may match with the topics in units, but if the lexical objective
of the unit is communicative although you ask students to write definitions, your test certainly fails
in terms of construct validity.
• Criterion-related/predictive validity: A test has this type of validity, if it is useful for predicting
performance or behavior in another situation.
• For example, a job applicant takes a performance test during the interview process, if this test
accurately predicts how well the employee will perform on the job, the test is said to have criterion
validity.
• Face validity: refers to the degree to which a test looks right and appears to measure the knowledge or
abilities it claims to measure.
• Concurrent validity: the test gives similar results to existing tests that have already been validated.

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Backwash/washback
• the impact of testing on teaching and learning.

• Namely, the effect that the nature of the examination has on the teaching and
learning during a course.

• it can be beneficial or harmful.

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5. CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST-3
3. Practicality:
• A test should be user-friendly, time and cost effective, practical to administer,
easy to score and easy to interpret.
4. Discrimination:
• A good test needs to discriminate between the learners’ ability by separating
the ones who know and can do better than those who cannot.
5. Fairness:
• All students need to be able to carry out what the questions in the testing and
assessment tool necessitate them to do (mentally, physically, or emotionally)
6. Authenticity:
• The testing and assessment tool need to include tasks encountered in real
lives for real purposes.

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6. TEST TECHNIQUES=TEST ITEMS
A test whose items are designed in different formats is more valid and reliable than a
test that is designed in a single format.

1.Questions & answers 10.Essay writing

2.Multiple-choice questions 11.Interview
3.Gap-filling 12. Cloze test
4.Matching questions 13. C-test
5. Sentence-re-ordering 14. Transferring information
6.Transformation and paraphrase 15. Info-gap tasks
7. Translation 16. Dialogue completion tasks
8. Editing tasks 17. Role plays
9. Word formation items 18. Dictation
19. Note-taking etc.
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7. STAGES OF TEST DEVELOPMENT

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7.1. TEST SPECIFICATION/BLUEPRINT
• A document that describes, the test purpose, the content,
test constructs, item types/task types, and a statement of
the number of items, and scoring procedure.
• ensure item content matches learning objectives
(associated with CRT)

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8.RULES TO FOLLOW WHEN WRITING ITEMS-1
• Item formats should match the purpose and content of the item.
• Each item should be written at the level of students’ proficiency
• Ambiguous terms and tricky language
• Questions should be answered ONLY through the necessary knowledge and skill
regarding the construct-NOT THROUGH GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OR GUESSING
• The use of negatives and double negatives should be avoided
• Teachers should also avoid giving clues in one item that will help students to answer
another item.
• All the parts of each item should be on one page.
• Teachers should also avoid including extra information that is irrelevant to the
construct tested.
• Teachers should also avoid absoluteness clues such as all, always, absolutely, never
rarely, most often, and so forth.

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8.RULES TO FOLLOW WHEN WRITING ITEMS-2
• Each question needs to have only one correct answer.
• All alternatives should be plausible.
• Alternatives should be homogenous in content.
• The alternatives “all of the above” and “none of the above” should not be used.
• The alternatives should be presented in a logical order (e.g., alphabetical or numerical) to
avoid a bias toward certain positions.
• Make the distractors approximately the same length as the correct answer.
• Include words/phrases in the stem that would otherwise be repeated in the alternatives.
/Avoid redundant words and phrases in the alternatives.
• There should be no grammatical clues to the correct answer.
• Avoid textbook, verbatim phrasing when developing the items.

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9. HISTORY OF LANGUAGE TESTING-1
1. The pre-scientific period/essay 2. The Psychometric-Structuralist
translation approach: Approach:
• Back in 1950s, there were almost no • It views that language learning is chiefly
scientific researches on testing. concerned with systematic acquisition of
• The tests included questions on grammar a set of habits.
translation or reading, translation and
essay writing and knowledge of grammar.
• language should be broken up into
• 'intuitive period' as teachers prepared the discrete units for the purposes of testing.
test items on the basis f their intuitions.
• No special skill or expertise in testing is
required. • Tests phonology, vocabulary and
grammar.

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9. HISTORY OF LANGUAGE TESTING-2
3. Psycholinguistic/Sociolinguistic Approach- 4. The Communicative Approach:
Integrative Approach
• concerned primarily with how language is
• Cloze tests, essay writing and dictation are used in communication.
widely used testing techniques.
• The idea of pragmatic test was • The importance of strategic competence is
constructed. highly valued because it enables students to
• Functions and meaning relationships of keep the conversation going on.
language items were the focus.
• It involves testing of language in context; is • The test content should totally be relevant
concerned primarily with meaning and the for a particular group of examinees and the
total communicative effect of discourse. tasks set should be authentic.

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 QUESTIONS
LANGUAGE TESTING
& ASSESSMENT IN
ELT ASKED IN
ÖABTs
2013-KPSS-İÖABT
Before the beginning of the academic year, English teachers may give a test
to their pupils to identify their language proficiency levels. This test type is
called ----.

Choose the alternative which best completes the given sentence.

A.Diagnostic test
B.Placement test
C.Achievement test
D.Progress test
E. Knowledge test
2015-KPSS-İÖABT
When we interpret scores from language tests as indicators of test-takers’
language ability, a crucial question is, “To what extend can we justify these
interpretations?” The --- refers to the extent to which performance on test is
consistent with the interpretations we make on the basis of theory of abilities
like proficiency, fluency and communicative competence. The ---, on the other
hand, concerns whether a test actually samples the subject matter about
which conclusions are to be drawn. If a course has ten objectives but only two
are covered in a test, then this type of validity suffers.

Chose the option that completes the sentence.

A. Construct validity / criterion-related validity

B. Predicative validity / face validity
C. Concurrent validity / content validity
D. Predicative validity / criterion-related validity
E. Construct validity / content validity
2016-KPSS-İÖABT
A blueprint is a detailed plan that provides the basis for developing an
entire test.

According to the definition given above, which of the following is not

taken into consideration when creating a blueprint?

A. The number of the tasks

B. The sequence of the tasks
C. The relative importance of the tasks
D. Washback effect of the tasks
E. Task specifications
2017-KPSS-İÖABT
They are purposeful collections of students’ work that demonstrate to
students and others their efforts, progress, and achievements in particular
areas. They include essays, compositions, book reports, artwork, video- or
audiotape recordings of a student’s oral production, and virtually anything
else one wished to specify.

Which of the following assessment alternatives is described in the paragraph

above?

A) Journals
B) Rubrics
C) Portfolios
D) Diagnostic tests
E) Text-based prompts
2018-KPSS-İÖABT
Mr. Johnson teaches English at a prestigious high school at a metropolitan area in which
parents closely monitor what teachers do to help students pass high-stakes
examinations that deeply impact their prospective life and career choices. However,
these examinations fail to test all f the four skills. Therefore, Mr. Johnson usually finds
himself caught in a dilemma about whether to teach for tests by sticking rigidly to
exam-format activities intended to improve only receptive skills and vocabulary or use
a range of activities to develop all four language skills simultaneously.

Which of the following testing-related concepts could be cited as the reason for Mr.
Johnson’s instructional dilemma?
A.Washback effect
B. Integrative testing
C. Analytic testing
D.Global assessment
E. Reliability
2019-KPSS-İÖABT
2019-KPSS-İÖABT
2020-KPSS-İÖABT
2020-KPSS-İÖABT
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A E D C A C B B A