Six Qualities Of Useful Tests

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1. Write an essay about 1500 to 2000 words to discuss on the six qualities of useful tests including examples to support your ideas. (5 marks). Language assessment or language testing is a field of study belonging to the umbrella of applied linguistics. A test is a smaller part of assessment, intending to measure the respondents’ knowledge or other abilities. It is a very important process after working or learning time. There are six qualities of useful tests, including reliability, validity, authenticity, interactiveness, impact, and practicality. First of all, reliability is defined as consistency of measurement, the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent results (Phelan, 2005-2006). In other words, the test…show more content…
Concurrent validity, linking to time, is established when the test and the criterion are administered at about the same time. Predictive validity concerns the degree to which a test can predict future success of candidates’ performance. An example of predictive validity would be how well a proficiency test could predict a student’s ability to deal with graduate course at a British university. The criterion measure here might be an assessment of student’s English as perceived by his or her supervisor at the university, or it could be the outcome of course (pass or fail) (Hughes,…show more content…
If a test is unreliable, it cannot be valid. For a test to be valid, it must reliable first. However, just because a test is reliable does not mean it will be valid. Reliability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for validity. Another quality of useful test is authenticity, the bridge of the relationship between the test and the real world. Also, Bachman and Palmer (1996, p. 23) see authenticity as a critical quality of language tests. Language learners are eager to perform when they are faced with tasks reflecting real world situations and contexts. Therefore communicative teaching uses authentic texts and life-like tasks to generate authentic communication. For example, simulations of real-like tasks are used as a part of spoken ability tests and specific purposed in the British council ELT. Closely connected to the concept of authenticity is interactiveness, defined as the extend of involvement of the test taker’s individual characteristics in accomplishing a test task (Bachman, 1996). For example, a test task that requires test taker to relate the topical content of the test to his or her own topical knowledge is likely to be more interactive than that does

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