Assessment concepts &

issues
What is the difference between assessment
and a test?
Assessment is an ongoing process that includes
a wide range of methodological techniques. A
good teacher never stops to assess students.
Tests are a subset of assessment, a genre of
assessment techniques. In scientific terms, a
test is a method of measuring a persons
ability, knowledge, or performance in a given
domain.
A test:

is a method (an instrument, a set of

techniques, procedures or items, that requires
performance on the part of the test-taker.
must measure, which can be defined as a
process of quantifying a test-takers
performance according to explicit rules.
measures performance ones ability to
perform language, i.e., to speak, write, read or
listen. But the results imply the test-takers
ability or competence.
Is evaluation the same as testing?
Test scores are an example of
measurement and conveying the
meaning of those scores is evaluation.
Simply, evaluation involves the
interpretation of information.
Curriculum evaluation focuses on
collecting information about different
aspects of a language program, such as
the teachers, teacher training, the
students, learning environment, teaching
materials, classroom processes.
 Overlapping concepts

Teaching
Assessment
Evaluation
Measurement

Tests
 Informal and formal assessment

Informal assessment starts with incidental,

unplanned comments and responses, along
with coaching and other impromptu feedback
to the student. E.g. Well done! Did you say
can or cant? or putting a smiley face on some
homework.
Formal assessments are exercises or
procedures specifically designed to tap into a
storehouse of skills and knowledge. All tests
are formal assessments, but not all formal
assessment is testing.
 Formative and summative
assessment
Most of our classroom assessment is
formative assessment: evaluating
students in the process of forming their
competencies and skills with the goal of
helping them to continue that growth
process.
Summative assessment aims to measure,
or summarise, what a student has learnt
and typically occurs at the end of a course
or unit of instruction.
 Norm-referenced and Criterion-
referenced tests
In norm-referenced tests, each test-
takers score is interpreted in relation
to a mean (average score), median
(middle score), standard deviation
(extent of variance in scores), and/or
percentile rank.
Criterion-referenced tests are
designed to give test-takers
feedback, usually in the form of
grades, on specific course or lesson
 Types of tests

Achievement tests are limited to particular

material addressed in a curriculum within a
particular time frame and are offered after a
course has focused on the objectives in
question. The primary role of the test is to
determine whether course objectives have
been met by the end of a teaching period.
Diagnostic tests aim to diagnose aspects
of a language that a student needs to
develop or that a course should include.
 Types of tests

Placement tests help to place a student

into a particular level or section of a
language curriculum or school.
Proficiency tests are not limited to any
one course, curriculum, or single skill in
the language; rather, it tests overall ability.
Aptitude tests are designed to measure
capacity or general ability to learn a
foreign language before taking a course.
 Approaches to language testing

Discrete-point tests (1950s-1960s)

Integrative testing (1970s-1980s)
Communicative language testing
(1980s-1990s)
Performance based assessment