Evaluation and Assessment
• Evaluation is a broad term which involves the systematic way of
gathering reliable and relevant information for the purpose of
making decisions.
• Evaluation may focus on different components of a course:
syllabus
of
learners
achievement
teaching
methodology
Evaluation
focus
quality of the
materials
appropriateness
of the objectives
materials
methods
achievement
quantitative
• test scores
Evaluative
information
comments/opinions
qualitative
different
methods
questionnaires, interviews,
classroom observation, study of
documents, tests, rating
Assessment
• Assessment involves testing, measuring or judging the progress,
the achievement or the language proficiency of the learners. The
focus is on the students’ learning and the outcomes of teaching.
Assessment may be one part of an evaluation
Forms of assessment
summative
formative
is used at the end of a
term, a or a year
to monitor the
students’ progress
during a course
to assess how much
has been achieved
by individuals or
groups
in the form of
informal tests and
quizzes and class
observation
What’s a test?
•An educational test is a measurement
instrument which is designed to elicit a
specific sample of an learner’s
language behaviour which can be
interpreted as the evidence of the
abilities which we are interested in.
• ( what are these abilities?)
Purposes of testing
• To measure language proficiency.
• To discover how successful students have been in achieving the
objectives of the course of study.
• To diagnose students’ strengths and weaknesses to identify
what they know and what they do not know.
• To assess placement of students by identifying the stage of part
of a teaching programme most appropriate to their ability.
BACKWASH
EFFECTS
Backwash Effects
• Washback is generally defined as the influence
of testing on teaching and learning’
• Washback refers to the extent to which the
introduction and use of a test influences
language teachers and learners to do things
that they would not otherwise do that promote
or inhibit language learning.
Beneficial washback
• if it made teachers and learners do ‘good’ things they would not
otherwise do: for example:
• prepare lessons more thoroughly, do their homework, take the subject
being tested more seriously, and so on. And indeed, teachers are
often said to use tests to get their students to do things they would
not otherwise do: to pay attention to the lesson, to prepare more
thoroughly, to learn by heart, and so on.
• then any test, good or bad, can be said to be having beneficial
washback if it increases such activity or motivation.
• The concept is rooted in the notion that tests or
examinations can and should drive teaching, and hence
learning, and is also referred to as
measurement-driven instruction
Negative effects of washback
• Alternatively, one might wish to consider the possibility of a test,
good or bad, having negative effects. The most obvious such effect is
anxiety in the learner brought about by having to take a test of
whatever nature, and, if not anxiety, then at least concern in
teachers, if they believe that some consequence will follow on poor
performance by the pupils. The argument would go like this: any
learner who is obliged to do something under pressure will perform
abnormally and may therefore experience anxiety.
• Thus pressure produces abnormal performance, the fear of which
produces anxiety. In addition, the fear of the consequences of
particular performances produces anxiety which will influence those
performances. Similarly for teachers, the fear of poor results, and the
associated guilt, shame, or embarrassment, might lead to the desire
for their pupils to achieve high scores in whatever way seems
possible. This might lead to ‘teaching to the test’, with an undesirable
‘narrowing of the curriculum’.
“THE GOOD TEST IS AN
OBEDIENT SERVANT
SINCE IT FOLLOWS AND
APES THE TEACHING”
DAVIES, 1968
Criteria of good tests
•Validity and reliability
•Beneficial washback
•Practicality
•Comprehension
•Relevance
•Balance
•Economy
•Difficulty
•Clarity
•Objectivity
•Time
1. Validity
•A test is said to be valid to the
extent that it measures what it is
supposed to measure, For example,
a test is designed to measure
control of grammar becomes
invalid if it contains difficult
vocabulary.
2. Reliability
•Reliability refers to the consistency
with which a test can be scored, that
is, consistency from person to person,
time to time or place to place.
In other words, if the same test is given
twice to the same pupils, it should
produce almost the same results.
3. Practicality
•Practicality refers to the efficiency in
terms of the necessary equipment, the
time needed for setting, administering
or marking the test, that is how easy
and quick it is to set or score the test,
how much it costs, how simple it is,
how much equipment is required to
administer it.
4. Comprehension
•
A good test should be comprehensive,
covering all the items which have
been studied. This enables teachers to
know accurately the extent of the
pupils' knowledge
5. Relevance.
• The items of an effective test should
measure reasonably well the desired
objectives or achievement.
6. Balance
•
A practical test evaluates both
linguistic and communicative
competence. That is, the items of the
test must reflect the pupils' real
command of the language with regard
to appropriateness and accuracy .
7. Economy
•
An efficient test makes best use of the
teacher's limited time for preparing
and grading, and of the pupil's
assigned time for answering all the
items. Thus oral exams with classes of
thirty or more pupils are not
economical since they require too
much time and effort.
8. Difficulty
•. The test questions should be
appropriate in difficulty, neither too
hard nor too easy. Moreover, the
questions should be progressive in
difficulty in order to reduce stress and
tension.
9. Clarity
• . It is essential that all questions and instructions should be clear so
as to enable pupils to know exactly what the examiner wants them
to do.
10 . Objectivity
• . The questions and answers should be clear and definite so that the
marker would give the score a pupil deserves.
11. Time
• . A good test is one that is appropriate in length for the allotted
time
TEST TYPES
1. Proficiency test
•These tests are designed to measure the
test takers’ ability in a language, their
present level of mastery regardless of
any previous training
2. Diagnostic tests
•They are used to identify students’ language
problems, weaknesses or deficiencies with the
purpose of obtaining information of which
language areas require further teaching in
order to plan future teaching priorities .
3. Progress tests
•They are very similar to achievement tests, in
as much that they assess how much of what
has been taught has been learnt, but they look
back to a shorter period e.g. a teaching unit, a
chapter of a textbook and they intend to
measure the progress that the students are
making.
4. Achievement tests
• They look back over a longer period to check how
much of the language syllabus has been acquired by
the students, whether they have achieved the course
objectives.
5. Placement tests
•They measure the students’ general
knowledge of the language, test their
previous language-learning experience in
order to separate them into different
levels of language proficiency so that
they can be arranged in groups or
language classes of the appropriate level.
6. Aptitude tests
•With the help of aptitude tests we can
predict how good language learners
students are likely to become. These are
given before the start of a language
course.
Common Test Techniques•