What Is Test..draft

The test provider is required to ensure that the use of the test is appropriate for its stated purpose
and
target population.
From a test performance we obtain a score, and from the score we draw inferences about the
constructs the test is designed to measure.
A test is based to empower to be creative in the development of communicative competence in the

classroom.
When this information is available, the teacher is empowered to design his or her own approaches and
materials that aim to develop the abilities that the test is designed to measure.
Definition of testing
Simply put, a test refers to a tool, technique or a method that is intended to measure
students knowledge or their ability to complete a particular task. In this sense, testing
can be considered as a form of assessment. Tests should meet some basic requirements,
such as validity and reliability.
o Validity refers to the extent to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure.
o Reliability refers to the consistency of test scores when administered on different
occasions.
There are different types of tests:
o Placement tests: It is designed to help educators place a student into a particular level or
section of a language curriculum or school
o Diagnostic tests: they help teachers and learners to identify strengths and weaknesses.
o Proficiency tests: they measure a learner’s level of language.
o Achievement tests: they are intended to measure the skills and knowledge learned after
some kind of instruction.
Assessment is thus the process of collecting information about students from diverse
sources so that educators can form an idea of what they know and can do with this
knowledge. While evaluation is concerned with making judgments about instruction, a
curriculum, or an educational system, assessment is concerned with the students’
performance. In other words, one assesses an individual but evaluates a program, a
curriculum, an educational system, etc.
The verb ‘assess’ often collocates with:
o skills,
o abilities,
o performance,
o aptitude,
o competence.
According to Le Grange & Reddy, (1998, p.3)
Merriam-webster
1. something (such as a series of questions or exercises) for measuring the

skill, knowledge, intelligence, capacities, or aptitudes of an individual or
group
(2): a procedure, reaction, or reagent used to identify or characterize a
substance or constituent
In order to know how well the learning process, the teacher must evaluate it. There are many ways that
use to evaluate the teaching learning process. One of the ways is test. According to Brown
A test is a method of measuring a person‟s ability, knowledge or performance in a given domain (Brown,
2000:384).
Ur (1996:34) said that the test used as a means to motivate students to learn or review specific material.
Through the test, the teacher does not only motivate and measure the students‟ ability, but also
improve the lesson in teaching learning process. Arikunto (2012:66) defines test is tool or procedure
used to know or measure student‟s performance by using a set of ways and rules.
The Categories of Tests
According to Brown (1996:2), there are two categories of tests can help language teachers to make
much better decisions about theirs student:
Norm-Referenced Tests
In brief, a norm - referenced test (NRT) is designed to measure global language abilities (for instance,
overall English language proficiency, academic listening ability, reading comprehension, and so on)- Each
student‟s score on such a test is interpreted relative to the scores of all other students who took the
test. Such comparisons are usually done with reference to the concept of the normal distribution
(familiarly known as the bell curve). The purpose of an NRT is to spread students out along a continuum
of scores so that those with “low” abilities in a general area such as reading comprehension are at one
end of the normal distribution, while those with “high” abilities are at the other end (with the bulk of
the students falling near the middle). In addition, while students may know the general format of the
questions on an NRT (for example, multiple-choice, true-false, dictation, or essay), they will typically not
know what specific content or skills will be tested by those questions.
Criterion-Referenced Tests
In contrast, a criterion-referenced test (CRT) is usually produced to measure well-defined and fairly
specific objectives. Often these objectives are specific to a particular course, program, school district, or
state. The interpretation of scores on a CRT is considered absolute in the sense that each student‟s
score is meaningful without reference to the other students‟ scores. In other words, a student‟s score
on a particular objective indicates the percent of the knowledge or skill in that objective that the student
has learned. Moreover, the distribution of scores on a CRT need not necessarily be normal. If all the
students know 100% of the material on all the objectives, then all the students should receive the same
score with no variation at all. The purpose of a CRT is to measure the amount of learning that a student
has accomplished on each objective. In most cases, the students would know in advance what types of
questions, tasks, and content to expect for each objective because the question content would be
implied (if not explicitly stated) in the objectives of the course.
Critical language pedagogy (CLP) is a perspective on teaching second, additional, heritage, or other
languages that is based in values of social justice.
Akbari’s presentation notes that CLP sees language education ‘as an intrinsically political, power-
related activity’; it relates to the inclusion of marginalized groups; it connects the classroom to
action (for social justice) outside the classroom; it critiques language, in this case English, also in
terms of power and justice. Not only does it critique, however; it also provides a ‘discourse of
hope’. It ‘legitimizes the voices of practitioners and learners, and gives them scope to exercise
power in their local context’ (Akbari 2008: 277).
Historically, language testing practices followed the shifting of trends of teaching methodology.
In the 1950’s an era of behaviorism and special attention to contrastive analysis, testing focused
on specific language elements such as phonological, grammatical and lexical contrast between
two languages. While in 1970’s and 1980’s communicative theories of language brought with them a more
integrative view of testing in which specialists claimed that “the whole of the communicative
event was considerably greater than the sum of its linguistic elements. And today test designers
are still challenged in their quest for more authentic, valid instruments that simulate real world
interaction.

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The test provider is required to ensure that the use of the test is appropriate for its stated purpose

A test is based to empower to be creative in the development of communicative competence in the

1. something (such as a series of questions or exercises) for measuring the

The Categories of Tests

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