1. Chapter One
Presented By:
Asst. Lect. Ali Al-Zurfi
alif.alzurfi@uokufa.edu.iq
(Basic Assessment Concepts)
1

2. INTRODUCTION
TEACHING
 “The process of carrying out certain activities that
experience has shown to be effective in getting
students to learn''
 Setting up the opportunities for learners to listen,
think, take, risks, set goals, and process feedback from
the “coach” and then recycle through the skills that
they are trying to master.

3.  Brown (2004) simply defines a testing as a method of
measuring a person’s ability, knowledge, or
performance in a given domain.
 Test is an instrument designed to measure any quality,
ability, skill or knowledge.
 Davies (1968:5) has said that ‘the good test is an
obedient servant since it follows and apes the
teaching’.
Testing

4. ASSESSMENT, EVALUATION, AND TESTING
 Evaluation
  it refers to the process of determining the extent to which instructional
objectives are attained.
 Assessment
 Assessment is a method for analyzing and evaluating student
achievement or program success
  refers to the collection of data to describe or better understand an issue.
 Testing
  refers to the administration, scoring and interpretation of an instrument
(procedure) designed to elicit information about performance in a sample of a
particular area of behavior.

5. Why do we assess?
 All assessments are for a purpose. What and how
you assess should obviously depend on your
purpose. We can distinguish at least seven
important purposes of assessment which indicate
seven different emphases in measuring students‟
ability and potential.

6.  There is, however some overlap among them. A single
test may have more than one purpose. Consider the
following purposes:
 1- Placement: To place or classify students on a suitable
course.
 2- Diagnosis: to specify student's particular strengths
and weaknesses.
 3- Selection: to select the best candidates for a limited
number of places or jobs or for higher education studies.
 4- Evaluation: to evaluate the effectiveness of the
syllabus as well as the method of teaching so as to
make adjustments where needed.
 5- Progress: to assess what students have learned for
specific syllabus and what progress they have made.
 6- Prediction: to discover potential abilities and aptitudes
and to predict probable future successes in school or
outside.

7. KINDS OF TESTS
 PROFICIENCY TEST
 Proficient- the state of being competent or skilled in a
particular area/s.
 Proficiency test generally measures three aspects:
 1) Individual’s ability and skill
 2) Level of language proficiency/competence
 3) Strength and weakness in particular branch of learning
 Proficiency Tests: used to test students‟ present knowledge
and ability for future learning. Also measure what students
have learnt but they are in no way related to any syllabus or
teaching program. Language tests of this type aim to assess
learners‟ global ability

8.  Disadvantage: undergoes process (in order to pass surely, one has to attend
special preparatory courses and that might be expensive)
 Advantage: ALL skills of language are being practiced and incorporated (the
participant would be highly exposed with the different branches of language
that develops language competence)
 Examples of Proficiency Examinations:
 American Testing of English as Foreign Language(TOFEL)
 Cambridge First Certificate Test
 IELTS (International English Language Testing System).

9. Achievement Test
 : which tests student's present knowledge as indicative of past learning. They
are directly based on detailed course syllabus and measure the extent of
learning in accordance with stated objectives of the learning program. For
example, annual school examination and tests given during the course of
instruction to assess development are termed Progress tests.
 Purposes:
 The purpose of achievement tests is to measure how successful
individual students, groups of students, or the course themselves
have been in achieving objectives.

10.  Two kinds:
 Final achievement tests/Summative Evaluation
 Final Achievement Tests are those administrated at the end of course
of study. They contribute to summative assessment.
 Progress achievement tests
 Progress Achievement Tests are intended to measure the measure
the progress that students are making. (Formative assessment)
 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

11. DIAGNOSTIC TEST
 DIAGNOSTIC TEST
 supposed to spot the students’ weak and strong points (Hughes,
1989:6).
 provides the student with a variety of language elements, which will
help the teacher to determine what the student knows or does not
know (Underhill, 1991:14).
 Diagnostic Tests: which tests what has gone wrong. They are
designed by the teacher of the subject to show what skills or aspects
of the language program a student has achieved or not achieved.
Achievement and Proficiency tests are frequently used for diagnostic
purposes. The results will provide information of what is being learnt
and not learnt by the class as a whole and individuals.


12.  Advantages
 Diagnostic Test
 let's the students know how well they have learnt particular
course elements and are typically done at the end of course
book units or recent classwork.
 by this, teachers can be fairly confident of their ability to create
tests that will tell them that a student is particularly weak in a
certain subject.

13.  Aptitude Tests:
 which assesses language skill for future learning. A
language aptitude test (or prognostic) is designed to
measure a student's probable performance in a foreign
language 4 which he has not started to learn. It
attempts to predict his probable strengths and
weaknesses by measuring his performance in an
artificial language.

14.  Placement Tests
- According to Hughes (1989:7), this type of test is also used to
decide which group or class the learner could be joined to. This
statement is entirely supported by another scholar, such as
Alderson (1996:216), who declares that this type of test is
meant for showing the teacher the students’ level of the
language ability. It will assist to put the student exactly in that
group that responds his/her true abilities.
 Purpose

Constructed for particular situations. They depend on the
identification of the key features at different levels of teaching
in the institution. Not every placement test will work for every
institution because it will depend on the need of the particular
teaching programmer

15. Advantages Disadvantages
To place the students in
the appropriate levels of
class
Psychological Impact
Feedback of the tests Originally-developed test
Same Tests Standardized Tests

16. TYPES OF TESTING
DIRECT AND INDIRECT TESTING
 Direct Test Items
 Direct test requires the candidate to perform precisely the skill
that we wish to measure.(e.g. Essay ,questions, Interviews and
presentations)

 Indirect Test Items
 Indirect test attempts to measure the abilities that underlie the
skills in which we are interested.
 Indirect test items assess knowledge without authentic
application. Below are some common examples of indirect test
items. (e.g Multiple choice questions,Cloze items)

17. Discrete Point and Integrative Testing
 Discrete Point
 A discrete point test consists of many questions on a large
number of linguistic points, but each question tests only
one linguistic point. Examples of Discrete point test are:
 Phoneme recognition, Yes/No, True/ False answers,
Spelling
 Integrative Testing
 Integrative testing requires the candidate to combine many
language elements in the completion of a task. For
example, writing composition, making notes, etc.

18. Norm-referenced and Criterion-referenced testing
 Norm-referenced test
 In norm-referenced tests, each test-takers’ score is interpreted in
relation to mean (average score), median (middle score), standard deviation
(extent of variance score), and/or percentile rank. The purpose in such tests
is to place test-takers along in the form of numerical score.
 Criterion-referenced test
 Criterion-referenced test, on the other hand, are designed to give test-
takers feedback, usually in the form of grades, on specific course or lesson
objectives. In a criterion-referenced test, the distribution of students’ score
across a continuum may be of little concern as long as the instrument
assesses appropriate objectives.

19. Subjective and Objective Testing
 Subjective Testing
 Judgment is required on the part of the scorer.
 Different degrees of Subjectivity in Scoring.
 Complexity increases subjectivity – the scoring of a composition being
more subjective compared to short-answer responses.
 Objective Testing
 No Judgment is required on the part of the scorer.
 Multiple Choice, Fill-in-the-blank

20. Receptive Vs. Productive
Receptive test:
 Also known as recognition test like multiple choice items, true/false questions,
or gap-filling, student simply select the best answer. The answer indicates the
student's knowledge, or lack of knowledge of the predetermined correct answer.
TOEFL Listening Comprehension, structure, and Reading Comprehension are
types of receptive tests. These tests are easy to score, but they are not
appropriate to test the ability to produce or use the correct form in real
situations. The recognition test is scored objectively.

 Productive test:
 also called Expressive test, like writing a composition or speaking require
active or creative answers given by the student. Typical keywords in the writing
question,Discuss Compare, Describe, Define, etc. The answers may range from
a single sentence to paragraphs. A production question does not have a single
answer and so it is scored subjectively

21. Computer-Adaptive Testing (CAT)
 CAT is a method for administering exams that merges computer technology
with modern measurement theory to increase the efficiency of the exam
process.
Communicative Language Testing (CLT)
 Communicative testing is a learning tool, providing evaluative
information to both learner and teacher. The purpose of communicative testing
is to Measures learners' ability to translate their competence (or lack of it) into
actual performance in 'ordinary' situations.

22.  Communicative Testing in Listening skills
 Communicative listening tests design requires (1)authentic texts
e.g. conversations, interviews, broadcasts, telecasts, extended talk, and
entertainment; (2) tasks e.g. transcoding, and scanning; (3) channel
through which messages are conveyed from the sender to the receiver
and (4) response mode which is usually oral but in some instances,
could also be written or nonverbal.
 Communicative Testing in Speaking skills
 The activities that involve speakers in using language for the
purpose of achieving a particular goal or objective in a particular
speaking situation. Examples are role play, interview, and problem-
solving.
 Communicative testing in writing skills
 Some tests combine reading and writing in communicative
situations. Tastes can be given a task in which they are presented with
instructions to write a letter, memo, summary, etc., answering certain
questions, based on information that they are given.
 For example; Business Letter

23. What do we assess?
 Clearly the answer to this question is language. The
two forms of language are the spoken and the
written. Two linguistic activities associated with both
speech and writing are: encoding and decoding.
 Speaking and writing are encoding through which we
communicate our ideas or feeling. Listening and
reading are the decoding processes by which we
understand a message. These four skills are not
intrinsically separate; they describe communication in
terms of sending and receiving in spoken and written
language.

24. When do we assess?
 Terminal or final: refers to assessment that takes
place at the end of a predetermined period or
unit, as, for example school year or a course of
study tests.
 Periodic: assessment measures levels of
achievement reached at predetermined intervals
throughout the course, for example monthly tests
or term tests.
 Continuous: assessment is given to have a
continuous updating of judgment about a
student's performance.