EVALUATION

(Richard Frost, British Council, Turkey)

i) How do you feel when writing a test?

ii) Which kind of tests do you like?

iii) How do you find the system of testing here at the college?

iv) How do you find the system of testing in Mozambique?

v) Are tests important in the education system? Why?

In literature on education a distinction is sometimes made between a Test, an Evaluation and an

assessment.

1. Testing is a means to check the amount of leaning that has taken place, one tests the learners.

2. Evaluation is a means to check the amount of both learning and teaching that has taken place.
Evaluation will mirror the results of both learning and teaching.

3. Assessment is a broader analysis of the learning, the teaching and the learning situation in terms of
the programs, the material and so on.

So one would test learners, will evaluate the teaching and learning process and will assess the course.
However, most often than not the three terms are used interchangeably.

“I will always remember the horror of receiving my chemistry result when I was thirteen years old.
I knew it wasn't going to be high, but to come bottom of the class was very upsetting. It was all
made worse by the fact that the chemistry teacher read the results to the whole class, from first to
last place. My humiliation was complete. Students can have very negative reactions towards tests
and it's no surprise when they too may have had experiences like this.”

Types of Evaluation

There are basically two types of Evaluations

 Formative Evaluation
  Summative Evaluation
I. The Formative Evaluation

Formative Evaluations are the CATs; the continual assessment tests. The aim of his type of
evaluation is not to determine whether the student will pass or fail but rather to assess the quality
of work done so far in the process and to see what can be done with a view to improving the
quality of the students’ performance. The main aim of the Formative Evaluation is to Form, to
enhance the learning process.

Objectives

1. For teachers to ensure that learning is taking place.

2. For teachers to improve their teaching methods

3. For students to gain an idea of their progress and achievement.

II. Summative Evaluation (Final Examination)

Summative Evaluations are the final examination that students take at the end of the course. The
teacher evaluates an overall aspect of the learner’s knowledge in order to summarize the situation.

Nature of Evaluation

Both formative and summative evaluations may be

Oral

Written

Practical

Types of testing items

1. Multiple choice

e.g. Circle the option which best answers the following question.

The capital of Zambezia is ..

a) Mocuba b) Nicoadale c) Zalala d) Quelimane

2. Matching Questions

Match the crimes with their respective perpetrators.

Theaf robbery

Robber rape

Rapist theft.

3. Fill in the gaps with appropriate words

The first President of FRELIMO was _________________ and he died in ___________.

4. Short answer questions

What are nouns?

5. Alternative choice type

i) True or false

ii) Yes or no

iii) Agree or disagree

6. Essays (long pieces of writing)

7. Portfolio

Shortcoming of Testing

There are many arguments against using tests as a form of assessment:

 Student’s nervousness, some students become so nervous that they can't perform and don't
give a true account of their knowledge or ability.
 Cramming versus Understanding, other students can do well with last minute cramming
despite not having worked throughout the course.
  Test Centered Learners, once the test has finished, students can just forget all that they had
learned. Students become focused on passing tests rather than learning to improve their
language skills.

Why Testing

Testing is certainly not the only way to assess students, but there are many good reasons for including
a test in your language course.

 Check Student’s Progress. A test can give the teacher valuable information about where the
students are in their learning and can affect what the teacher will cover next.
 Teacher’s Evaluation. They will help a teacher to decide if her teaching has been effective
and help to highlight what needs to be reviewed. Testing can be as much an assessment of the
teaching as the learning.
 Motivate the Learners. Tests can give students a sense of accomplishment as well as
information about what they know and what they need to review.

In the 1970's students in an intensive EFL program were taught in an unstructured

conversation course. They complained that even though they had a lot of time to practise
communicating, they felt as if they hadn't learned anything. Not long afterwards a testing
system was introduced and helped to give them a sense of satisfaction that they were
accomplishing things. Tests can be extremely motivating and give students a sense of
progress. They can highlight areas for students to work on and tell them what has and
hasn't been effective in their learning.

 Challenge Learners to Revise. Tests can also have a positive effect in that they encourage
students to review material covered on the course.
o At university I experienced this first hand, I always learned the most before an exam.
Tests can encourage students to consolidate and extend their knowledge.
 Provide Learners With a Learning Opportunity. Tests are also a learning opportunity after
they have been taken. The feedback after a test can be invaluable in helping a student to
understand something she couldn't do during the test.

Making testing more productive

Despite all of these strong arguments for testing, it is very important to bear in mind the negative
aspects we looked at first and to try and minimise the effects.
  Try to make the test a less intimidating experience by explaining to the students the purpose
for the test and stress the positive effects it will have. Many may have very negative feelings
left over from previous bad experiences.
 Give the students plenty of notice and teach some revision classes beforehand.
 Tell the students that you will take into account their work on the course as well as the test
result.
 Be sensitive when you hand out the results. I usually go through the answers fairly quickly,
highlight any specific areas of difficulty and give the students their results on slips of paper.
 Emphasise that an individual should compare their results with their own previous scores not
with others in the class.

Learning from tests

Finally, it is very important to remember that tests also give teachers valuable information on how to
improve the process of evaluation. Questions such as:

o "Were the instructions clear?"

o "Are the test results consistent with the work that the students have done on the course.
Why/why not?"
o "Did I manage to create a non-threatening atmosphere?"
All of this will help the teacher to improve the evaluative process for next time.

Alternatives to testing

Using only tests as a basis for assessment has obvious drawbacks. They are 'one-off' events that do not
necessarily give an entirely fair account of a student's proficiency. As we have already mentioned,
some people are more suited to them than others. There are other alternatives that can be used instead
of or alongside tests.

 Continuous assessment

Teachers give grades for a number of assignments over a period of time. A final grade is decided
on a combination of assignments.

 Portfolio
A student collects a number of assignments and projects and presents them in a file. The file is
then used as a basis for evaluation.
  Self-assessment
The students evaluate themselves. The criteria must be carefully decided upon beforehand.
 Teacher's assessment

The teacher gives an assessment of the learner for work done throughout the course including
classroom contributions.

Characteristics of a good Test

A good test should be objective, reliable, valid, manageable, and balanced and should have the power
of discrimination.

1. Power of Discrimination

A test that either consists of easy or very difficult items cannot bring out the differences in
achievement of different learners. All learners will score well or all learners will perform badly, such
test will not be effective in discriminating between good and poor achievers.

2. Objective

Depending on the types of the question in the test, it can be either objective or subjective.

e.g. What is the best province in Mozambique? (This is a subjective question)

Can one objectively score the question above? An objective question is a question that can be scored
objectively.

3. Validity

A valid test is one that assesses a representative sample of the content and it measures what it is
supposed to test. The objectives of the question should be related to the objectives of the program.

4. Reliability

A perfectly reliable test will give identical results in all conditions. The results will not change
even if different teachers mark it or even if the answers are given by different learners.
 5. Manageable

A good test should be manageable, it shouldn’t be too difficult nor should it be too easy. A good
test shouldn’t be too long nor should it be too short.

6. Balanced

A good test should be balanced in terms of how much knowledge, comprehension and application
is being assessed.

i) Knowledge

Items that use closed questions.

e.g. What are prepositions?

ii) Comprehension

Items that use open-ended questions

e.g. Why are teachers encouraged to design a lesson plan before teaching?

iii) Application

Essay tasks

e.g. Imagine you find out that whenever you are teaching half of the class dozes.

a) What measures can you take?

b) Justify your answer.

Conclusions
Overall, I think that all the above methods have strengths and limitations and that tests have an
important function for both students and teachers. By trying to limit the negative effects of tests we
can try to ensure that they are as effective as possible. I don't think that tests should be the only criteria
for assessment, but that they are one of many tools that we can use. I feel that choosing a combination
of methods of assessment is the fairest and most logical approach.