Testing - AMT - Chapter 8 Flashcards
What are test techniques?
means of eliciting behaviour from candidates that tell about language abilities
Need for test techniques
Beneficial Washback
Elicit Behavior:
- Indicator of ability (Reliable+Valid)
- Scored Reliably
- Economic of time/effort
Multiple choice items include
- Stem
- Options
- Correct options
- Distractors
MC advantages
- Perfectly reliable
- Rapid + Economical
- Poss. More items (shorter) = +reliable
- Test Receptive Skills w/o produced written or spoken lang. = +validity
Why are MC reliable?
- Objective (get right answer or not)
- More items (Ss has more time)
- Test only receptive skills
MC bad indicator of Grammar Knowledge
Choose right answer ≠ Ability use Gramm. Structure
Mulltiple Choice Questions Disadvantages
- Gap (b/w)knowledge/use
- Guessing + Cheating
- No plausible Distractors
- Hard to create (statistics)
- Practice MC do not improve Lang. Ability
Short-Answer mostly used to test…
Listening and Reading
Short-Answer
Avdvantages (over MC)
- less guessing/cheating
- no distractors need
- easier to write items
Short-Answer
Disavdvantages (over MC)
- Responses take longer
- Production of Language needed
- Scoring if Judgement –rel. –val.
- Scoring takes longer
How to improve reliability and validity of Short-Answer Items
Response:
- Unique
- Found in text (or simple lang. required)
Short Answer Items in Serious Language Testing?
- Yes
- Only avoid Short-Answers in Large Scale situations
How to improve this Short-Answer Question?
- Why did Hannibal enjoy eating brain so much?
Make it shorter to answer (less language use)
- i.e. Use Gap Filling items
Gap filling items
- Work well with
- (read/list) Missing words in Text or frequent
- (voc/gram) continuous = only one gap
Gap filling items
- Bad Grammar test Use
- +than1 word in gap
- various possible responses
- +than1 gap
