Chapter 4 Classroom Assessment Flashcards
Language Aptitude Test
This test is designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language and ultimate success in that undertaking. Ostensibly designed to apply to the classroom learning of any language.
Language Proficiency Test
aim is to test global competence in a language (TOEFL, TEPS). These tests are almost always summative and norm-referenced with the form of a single score (or two or three subscores, one for each section of a test).
Placement Test
Purpose is to place a student into a particular level or section of a language curriculum or school. A student’s performance on the test should indicate the point at which the student will find material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.
Diagnostic Test
designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language. offers checklist of features for the administrator to use to pinpoint difficulties. This test can help a student become aware of errors and encourage the adoption of appropriate forms and uses.
Achievement test
Primary role is to determine whether course objectives are met. Often summative, offers washback about the quality of learner’s performance in subsets of course/unit
Test Specification
tool of language test development. generative blueprint from which test items or tasks can be produced, teaching plan
Specbank
collection of specifications in some sort of organized and common location (computer website, database, file drawer). purpose is to keep test specs archived, coordinated and available
Specmap
Graphic of the relationship of various test specs. it can serve the function of review and clarity across the entire bank identifying which specs are similar and which are dissimilar
Spec-driven tests
Tests that have been created from a specification and for which much of the investment at the test setting is in the creation, evolution, and maintenance of the spec
Reverse Engineering
Creation of test spec from representative test items/task. Entails analysis of a set of existing test tasks to decide if the test tasks are similar, and then to induce a spec that could link them together.
General Description (GD)
a paraphrase or verbatim quotation of a particular learning goal or objective, taken from a class syllabus
Prompt Attributes (PA)
provides a detailed description of what test takers will be asked to do, including the form of what they will be presented with in the test item or task, to demonstrate their knowledge or ability in relation to the criterion being tested.
It entails the selection of an item or task format, such as multiple-choice, oral interview or written essay
Response Attribute (RA)
Describe in detail what the test taker will do. Describes what should happen when the test taker responds to the given prompt. It differ along two dimensions: the selected response format (MC items) and the constructed response format.
Sample Item (SI)
A useful component in that it brings to life the language of the GD, PA, and RA. Establishes the explicit format and content patterns for the items or tasks that will be written from the spec
Specification Supplement (SS)
This component is an optional one, designed to allow the spec to include as much detail and information as possible without cluttering the GD, PA, and RA components.
