A Guide to Test Construction

1. TYPES OF LANGUAGE
ASSESSMENT

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Identify the types of assessment and evaluation;
Explain the different types of assessment tools;
Use guidelines for the use of each tool;
Prepare samples of each tool discussed;
Differentiate the different kinds of tests and testing;
Explain the use of each kind of test; and
Appreciate the value of knowing the various types of
assessment evaluation, tests and assessment tools in
teaching.

3. TYPES OF ASSESSMENT
TOOLS
1. Observation
2. Anecdotal Records
3. Checklists
4. Rating Scales and Rubrics
5. Portfolios
6. Speaking and Listening
7. Interviews/Conferences
8. Projects and Presentations
9. Quizzes, Tests, and
Examinations

4. OBSERVATION
This occurs during students’ daily
reading, writing, listening and
speaking experiences.
It is an unobtrusive means by which
teachers (and students) can
determine their progress during
learning.

6. ANECDOTAL
RECORDS
 These are notes written by the teacher
regarding student language behavior, or
learning.
 They document and describe significant daily
events, relevant aspects of student activity
and progress.
 These notes can be taken during student
activities or at the end of the day.

9. ANECDOTAL RECORDS:
Guidelines
a. Record the observation and the circumstance in
which the learning experience occurs.
b. Make the task of daily note taking manageable by
focusing on clearly defined objectives or purposes,
and by identifying only few students to observe
during a designated period of time.
c. Record data on loose leaf sheets and keep these in
a three-ring binder with a page designated for each
student and organized alphabetically by students’
last names or by class.

10. ANECDOTAL RECORDS:
Guidelines
d. Write the notes on recipe cards and then file
these alphabetically.
e. Use adhesive note papers that can be
attached to the student’s page or recipe card
files.
f. Design structured forms for collection of
specific data.
g. Use a combination of the above suggestions.

11. CHECKLIST
 These are usually completed while
students are engaged in specific
activities or processes, are lists of
specific criteria that teachers focus on at
a particular time or during a particular
process.
 Checklists are used to record whether
students have acquired specific
knowledge, skills, processes, abilities,
and attitudes.
 Checklists inform teachers about where
their instruction has been successful
and where students need assistance or
further instruction.

12. CHECKLIST:
Guidelines
 A. determine the observation criteria from curriculum,
unit, and lesson objectives.
 B. review specific criteria with students before beginning
the observation.
 C. involve students in developing some or all of the
criteria whenever it will be beneficial to do so.
 D. choose criteria that are easily observed to prevent
vagueness and increase objectivity.
 E. use jargon-free language to describe criteria so that
data can be used in interviews with students and
parents.
 F. Make observation manageable by keeping the
number of students observed to a few at one time.

13. CHECKLIST:
Guidelines
 G. have students construct and use checklists for peer
and self-assessments.
 H. summarize checklist data regularly.
 I. Use or adapt existing checklists to identify whether a
specific action has been completed or if a particular
quality is present.
 J. Use yes-no checklists to identify whether a specific
action has been completed or if a particular quality is
present.
 K. Use tally checklists to note the frequency of the action
observed or recorded.
 L. Construct all checklists with space for recording
anecdotal notes and comments.

14. RATING SCALES AND
RUBRICS
Rating scales record the extent to
which specific criteria have been
achieved by the student or are
present in the student’s work.
Rating scales also record the
quality of the student’s
performance at a given time or
within a given process.

16. RATING SCALES AND RUBRICS:
Guidelines
 A. Determine specific assessment criteria from curriculum
objectives, components of a particular activity, or student
needs.
 B. Discuss or develop the specific criteria with students
before beginning the assessment.
 C. Choose criteria that are easily observed in order to
prevent vagueness and increase objectivity.
 D. Select criteria that students have had the opportunity to
practice. These criteria may differ from student to student,
depending upon their strengths and needs.
 E. Use jargon-free language to describe criteria so that
data can be used effectively in interviews with students and
parents.

17. RATING SCALES AND RUBRICS:
Guidelines
 F. make the assessment manageable by keeping
the number of criteria to less than eight and by
limiting the number of students observed to a few
at one time.
 G. Use or adapt rating scales and rubrics from
other sources.
 H. Use numbered continuums to measure the
degree to which students are successful at
accomplishing a skill or activity.
 I. Use rubrics when the observation calls for a
holistic rating scale. Rubrics describe the
attributes of student knowledge or achievements
on a numbered continuum of possibilities.

18. PORTFOLIOS
 These are collections of
relevant work that reflect
students’ individual efforts,
development, and progress
over a designated period of
time.
 Portfolios provide students,
teachers, parents and
administrators with a broad
picture of each student’s
growth over time, including the
student’s abilities, knowledge,
skills and attitudes.

19. PORTFOLIOS:
Guidelines
 A. Brainstorm with students to discover what they
already know about portfolios.
 B. share samples of portfolios with students.
 C. Provide students with an overview of portfolio
assessment prior to beginning their collections.
 D. collaborate with students to set up guidelines for
the content of portfolios and establish evaluation
criteria for their portfolio collections.
 E. consider some factors.
 F. Assemble examples of work that represent a wide
range of students’ developing abilities, knowledge,
and attitudes including samples of work from their
speaking, listening, reading, writing, representing and
viewing experiences.

20. PORTFOLIOS:
Guidelines
 G. Date all items for
effective organization
and reference.
 H. Inform
parents/guardians
about the use and
purposes of portfolios.

21. SPEAKING AND
LISTENING
 Speaking or listening may be more
heavily emphasized depending upon the
particular unit or activities.
 Teachers, possibly in collaboration wit
their students, will determine the way that
the unit will be evaluated; however, it is
important that students know from the
beginning how they will be assessed and
evaluated.

23. INTERVIEWS/CONFERENCE
S Teacher-student
interviews or conferences
are productive means of
assessing individual
achievement and needs.
During these discussions,
teachers can discover
students’ perceptions of
their own processes and
products of learning.
 Interview questions can
be developed to meet the
needs of specific students
and to fit the curriculum
objectives.

24. PROJECTS AND
PRESENTATIONS
 Criteria should be developed
and/or discussed with
students at the outset of
activities such as written
reports, visual
representations, oral
presentations, or projects
which combine more than one
aspect of language use and
understanding.
 Teachers may assess the
attitudes, skill development,
knowledge, or learning
processes demonstrated by
students as they engage in
language activities.

25. QUIZZES, TESTS AND
EXAMINATIONS
 These are most often used
for assessing students’
knowledge of content;
however, they may be used
to assess processes, skills
and attitudes.
 Tests, whether they are oral
or written, must represent
students’ achievements as
accurately as possible.
Formats for test items
should be varied; each type
is most effective at
assessing and evaluating
student progress when used
in conjunction with the other
types.

26. QUIZZES, TESTS AND
EXAMINATIONS:
Guidelines Construct test items to accommodate the different
ways that students learn and demonstrate what they
have learned or can do.
 Ensure that test items measure curriculum objectives
accurately and fairly.
 Use a variety of test formats (e.g. performance items,
open-response questions, short-answer, matching),
ensuring that they are appropriate to the objective(s)
being measured.
 State test items clearly and precisely so that students
know what it is they are to do.
 Construct test items that allow students to
demonstrate and apply what they have learned.

27. QUIZZES, TESTS AND
EXAMINATIONS:
Guidelines Provide opportunities to build necessary
scaffolds for students who were unable to
demonstrate successfully their knowledge and
abilities, so that they can be successful next time.
 Use oral assessment when written responses are
not feasible or in situations where criteria can be
best assessed through oral responses.
 Use performance test items when students are
required to demonstrate competence directly (e.g.
giving a speech).
 Construct open –ended response items when it is
appropriate for students to respond in personal
ways.

28. QUIZZES, TESTS AND
EXAMINATIONS:
Guidelines Ask students to demonstrate their learning using progress
checks; students demonstrate what they know about a specific
topic or theme by writing, drawing, or using diagrams and
graphic organizers.
 Ask short-answer questions when students are required to
supply a specific answer to a specific question. These types of
questions are most often used to assess how well students have
internalized content. Short-answer questions can also be used to
test students’ abilities to analyze and evaluate, or to assess
attitude.

29. KINDS OF LANGUAGE
TESTS
• 1. Proficiency Tests
• 2. Achievement Tests
• 3. Diagnostic Tests
• 4. Placement Tests

30. PROFICIENCY TESTS
Proficiency tests are designed to
measure people’s ability in a
language, regardless of any
training they may have had in that
language. The content of
proficiency test, therefore, is not
based on the content or objectives
of language courses that people
taking the test may have followed.

31. ACHIEVEMENT TESTS
Generally, most teachers will be
involved in the preparation and use of
achievement tests. Achievement tests
are directly related to language
courses, their purpose being to
establish how successful individual
students, groups of students, or the
courses themselves have been in
achieving objectives. They are of two
kinds: final achievement tests and
progress achievement tests.

32. ACHIEVEMENT TESTS
FINAL ACHIEVEMENT TEST
 Syllabus-content approach
PROGRESS ACHIEVEMENT
TEST
 Pop quizzes

33. DIAGNOSTIC TESTS
Diagnostic tests are used to
identify learners’ strengths
and weaknesses. They are
intended primarily to ascertain
what learning still needs to
take place.

34. PLACEMENT TESTS
Placement tests, as their name
suggests, are intended to provide
information that will help to place
students at the stage (or in the part) of
the teaching program most
appropriate to their name abilities.
Typically, they are used to assign
students to classes at different levels.

35. TEST CONSTRUCTION
The Mechanics of Test Construction
Test Items
The Skill Tested and The Intellectual Skills
Needed
Phases of Evaluation
Stages of Test Construction

36. THE MECHANICS OF TEST
CONSTRUCTION
Writing items requires a decision
about the nature of the item or
question to which we ask
students to respond, that is,
whether discreet or integrative,
how we will score the item; the
skill we purport to test and others.

37. WHAT ARE TEST ITEMS?
A test item is a specific task test
takers are asked to perform. Test
items can assess one or more points
or objectives, and the actual item itself
may take on a different constellation
depending on the context.

38. SKILLS NEEDED
BLOOM’S REVISED COGNITIVE TAXONOMY
KNOWLEDGE Bringing to mind the
appropriate material
COMPREHENSION Understanding the basic
meaning of the material
APPLICATION Applying the knowledge of the
elements of language and
comprehension to how they
interrelate in the production of a
correct oral or written message.

39. ANALYSIS Breaking down a message into its
constituent parts in order to make
explicit the relationships between
ideas, including tasks like
recognizing the connotative
meanings of words and correctly
processing a dictation, and making
inferences.
EVALUATIO
N
Making quantitative and qualitative
judgments about material
SYNTHESIS Arranging parts so as to produce a
pattern not clearly there before, such
as in effectively organizing ideas in a
written composition.

40. PHASES OF EVALUATION
1. PREPARATION PHASE
2. ASSESSMENT PHASE
3. EVALUATION PHASE
4. REFLECTION PHASE

41. STAGES OF TEST
CONSTRUCTION
 1. PLANNING
 Goal
 Format
 Tasks
 2. DESIGN
A. Collecting Testing Material
B. Writing a Draft Version
C. Evaluating the Draft Version
D. Rewriting the Draft Version
 3. DEVELOPMENT
A. Piloting
B. Revising

42. TASKS
 Multiple Choice
 Single Response
 Multiple Response
 True/False
 Modified True/False
 Ranking
 Matching
 Hotspot
 Open Answer
 Text-Numeric
 Cloze
 C-Cloze
 Extended Response

43. CRITERIA OF A GOOD TEST
1. RELEVANCE
2. REPRESENTIVITY
3. AUTHENTICITY
4. BALANCE
5. VALIDITY
6. RELIABILITY

44. 1. RELEVANCE
The extent to which it is
necessary that students are
able to perform the task.

45. 2. REPRESENTATIVITY
The extent to which the task
represents a real situation.

46. 3. AUTHENTICITY
The extent to which the
situation and the interaction
are meaningful and
representative in the world of
the individual user.

47. 4. BALANCE
The extent to which each
relevant topic/ability receives
an equal amount of attention.

48. 5. VALIDITY
The extent to which the test effectively
measures what is intended to
measure.
a.Concurrent Validity
b.Construct Validity
c. Content Validity
d.Convergent Validity
e.Criterion-related Validity
f. Discriminant Validity
g.Face Validity
h.Predictive Validity