Types of tests and types of testing

Subject: Language Testing
Instructor: Nguyễn Thanh Tùng, Ph.D.
1. Phạm Phúc Khánh Minh
2. Nguyễn Trần Hoài Phương
3. Nguyễn Ngọc Phương Thành
4. Võ Thị Thanh Thư
5. Đỗ Thị Bạch Vân
6. Ngô Thảo Vy TESOL 2014B

Types
of
tests
1. Proficiency tests
2. Achievement tests
3. Diagnostic tests
4. Placement tests

 “Proficiency tests measure people’s ability in a language,
regardless of any training they may have had in that
language.”
Hughes, A. (2003)
 Content: base on a specification of what candidates have to be
able to do in the language in order to be considered proficient
(having sufficient command of the language for a purpose)
 E.g. test for a United Nations translator, test for a course of
study in a British university, test of arts, test of sciences

 Other proficiency tests are designed “to show
whether candidates have reached a certain standard
with respect to certain specified abilities”.
 Content: base on detailed specifications of what
candidates can do
 E.g. the Cambridge examinations (FCE, CPE), the
Oxford EFL examinations (Preliminary and Higher)

Differences
Function, Content
Similarity
- not base on courses that
candidates have previously
taken
- can be useful or harmful

Tests for a purpose
Tests for a more general
purpose
 Function: measure people’s
ability in a language
 Content: base on a
specification of what
candidates have to be able
to do to be considered
proficient
 E.g. test for a United Nations
translator, test of arts, test
of sciences
 Function: show whether
candidates have reached
a certain standard
 Content: base on detailed
specifications of what
candidates can do
 E.g. FCE, CPE

 Purposes:
measure how successful individual students,
groups of students, or the course themselves
have been in achieving objectives
 Two kinds:
1. Final achievement tests
2. Progress achievement tests

 Advantages:
only contain what the learner has actually
encountered  a fair test
 Disadvantages:
A badly-designed syllabus / badly-chosen book
 misleading results of a test
 unreal achievement of the course objectives

 measure the progress that students are making
 based on short-term objectives

 Used at the end of a course
 Written by ministries of education, official
examining boards, or members of teaching
institutions
 The test content can be based on a syllabus
studied or a book taken during the course.
 syllabus-content approach

Purposes:
• identify learners’ strengths and
weaknesses
• ascertain what learning still needs to
take place

Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Grammar

 Advantages:
E.g. Analysis of a learner’s performance in writing
and speaking in terms of grammatical accuracy or
linguistic appropriacy
 Disadvantages:
E.g. Difficulty in identifying whether a learner
masters the present perfect/past tense distinction

 Used to assign students to classes at
different levels
 No one placement test will work for every
institution
 The most successful one are those
constructed for particular situations.

Direct vs. Indirect testing
Discrete-point vs. Integrative testing
Criterion-referenced vs.
Norm-referenced testing
Objective vs. Subjective testing
Communicative Language Testing

• Perform precisely the skill which is
measured
• The tasks and texts should be as
authentic as possible.
• Easier to measure the productive
skills
• E.g. To know how students
pronounce a language  get them to
speak

• Measure the abilities underlying
the skills
• E.g. Sentence correction
exercises  an indirect measure of
writing ability

ATTRACTIONS
DIRECT INDIRECT
Create the conditions eliciting
the behavior that the
judgement is based on
Test a representative sample of
a finite number of abilities
underlying a potentially
indefinite large number of
manifestations of them
The assessment and
interpretation of Ss’
performance is quite
straightforward
Helpful backwash effect

PROBLEMS
DIRECT INDIRECT
Small sample of tasks Weak relationship between
performance on test and
performance of the skills

Discrete point testing refers to the testing
of one element at a time, item by item.
e.g. form of series of items, each testing
a particular grammar structure.

Integrative testing requires a
combination of many language
elements in a completion of a task.
e.g. writing a composition,
taking a dictation or
completing a cloze passage

The purpose of criterion–referenced
testing is to classify people according to
whether or not they are able to perform
some tasks or set of tasks satisfactorily.

Norm–referenced testing relates to one
candidate’s performance to that of
other candidate.

DIMENSIONS Norm-Referenced
Tests
Criterion-Referenced
Tests
PURPOSE
- To rank each student with
respect to the achievement of
others in broad areas of
knowledge.
- To discriminate between
high and low achievers
- To determine whether
each student has
achieved specific skills or
concepts.
- To find out how much
students know before
instruction begins and
after it has finished.
CONTENT
Measures broad skill areas
sampled from a variety of
textbooks, syllabi, and the
judgments of curriculum
experts.
Measures specific skills
which make up a
designated curriculum.
These skills are identified
by teachers and
curriculum experts.
Each skill is expressed as
an instructional
objective.

DIMENSIONS
Norm-Referenced
Tests
Criterion-Referenced
Tests
ITEM
CHARACTERISTICS
- Each skill is usually
tested by less than four
items.
- Items vary in difficulty.
- Items are selected that
discriminate between high
and low achievers.
- Each skill is tested by
at least four items in
order to obtain an
adequate sample of
student performance
and to minimize the
effect of guessing.
- The items which test
any given skill are
parallel in difficulty.
SCORE
INTERPRETATION
Student achievement is
reported for broad skill
areas, although some
norm-referenced tests do
report student
achievement for individual
skills.
A student's score is
usually expressed as a
percentage.
Student achievement is
reported for individual
skills.

4. OBJECTIVE VS. SUBJECTIVE TESTING
Subjective ObjectiveMethods of
scoring
- No judgement
required
- e.g. multiple
choice tests
- Judgement required
- e.g. essay tests
- Different degrees of
subjectivity

Objectivity in scoring -> reliability
Less subjective scoring -> greater agreement
(between two different scorers; between
scores of one person scoring the same test
paper on different occasions)
4. OBJECTIVE VS. SUBJECTIVE TESTING

 Hymes’s theory of communicative competence (1970s)
 influence language teaching and testing
Language does not only relate to grammar rules.
It also involves cuturally specific rules of use. 
features of communicative context

 Two features
Feature 1. CLTs are performance tests.
ASSESSMENT
Learners are engaged in an
act of communication
Receptive
Productive
Both

Feature 2.
E.g. The communicative tests of English as a Foreign
Language for overseas students intending to study at
British universities
CLTs
Focus on the
social roles in real
world settings
Offer a means of
specifying the demands
of such roles in detail

 Job analysis is the stage in which the basis for
the test design involves careful study of the
communicative roles and tasks.
 Job analysis is used in the development of tests
in occupational settings.
E.g. An Australian test of English as a second language
for health professionals: communicating with patients,
presenting cases to colleagues

Types of tests and types of testing

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