major concepts and terminologies in second language testing

2. Measurement: Fundamental Concepts & Preliminaries

3. Importance of Testing In Educational situations To determine the progress of students To ascertain achievement of educational objectives To make sound decision based on evaluation To know how much learning has taken place. Teaching & Testing Relationship Testing at the service of teaching Washback / backwash effect Positive / negative

4. Concepts & Terms Test: A procedure designed to elicit a certain behavior from which one can make inferences about certain characteristics of an individual. Assessment: An ongoing Process and a kind of measurement which encompasses a wider domain than a test and is carried out in direct and indirect ways.

5. Concepts & Terms Measurement: Process of quantifying individuals’ characteristics according to specific rules & procedure Evaluation: The systematic gathering of information for the purpose of making decisions. Qualitative vs. Quantitative Evaluations

6. Teaching–assessment Relation

9. Qualitative description of Ss performance

10. 2. non-test measure for evaluation

11. Teacher’s ranking for assigning grades

12. 3. test for evaluative purpose

13. Achievement testing

14. 4. test for non-evaluative purpose

15. Proficiency test for research

16. 5. non-test measure for non-evaluative purpose

21. Determining scores on a grammar testA 10-degree difference has the same meaning anywhere along the scale.

22. Ratio Scale •Ratio scales have a true zero point and are meaningful Physical scales of time length weight speed absolute temperature(Kelvin scale) •

23. the categories of the variable:

24. Test Genres Test Battery A group of tests standardized on the same population to yield comparable results and to produce a single score. Traditional vs. Computer-adaptive Discrete-point vs. Global/ Integrative Pragmatic vs. Functional/communicative Norm-referenced vs. Criterion-referenced Direct vs. Indirect Subjective vs. Objective Summative vs. Formative Power vs. Speed

25. Dimension CRT NRT To determine whether each student has achieved specific skills or concepts. To find out how much students know before and after instruction To rank each student with respect to theachievement of others in broad areas of knowledge. To discriminate between high and low achievers. Purpose Content Measures specific skills making up a designated curriculum and identified by teachers and curriculum experts. Each skill is expressed as an instructional objective. Measures broad skill areas sampled from a variety of textbooks, syllabi, and the judgments of curriculum experts. ItemCharacteristics Each skill is tested by at least four items to obtain an adequate sample of performance and to minimize the guessing effect . The items which test any given skill are parallel in difficulty. Each skill is usually tested by less than four items. Items vary in difficulty. Selected items show high discrimination indexes. ScoreInterpretation Testers are compared with a preset standard for acceptable achievement. The performance of other examinees is irrelevant. A student's score is usually expressed as a percentage. Student achievement is reported for individual skills. Testers are compared with other examinees and assigned a score--usually expressed as a percentile, a grade equivalent score, or a stanine. Student achievement is reported for broad skill areas, although some norm-referenced tests do report student achievement for individual skills. NRT vs. CRT

26. Test Items Alternate response Items True / False Yes / No Agree / Disagree Right / Wrong Fixed / Closed-ended response Items Multiple-Choice Matching Free / Open-ended response Items Short answer Gap-Fill Essay

28. Administration & scoring

29. Content sampling

30. Test construction

31. Norms & Standards

33. 6. Educational decisions can be made without measurement or evaluation. 7. Summative evaluation involves the use of tests and quizzes for the purpose of determining the effectiveness of instructional programs. Mohd. Pazhouhesh F T