formative assessment gives feedback on the progress and success of learning. they aim at developing...

FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Formative assessment gives feedback on the progress and success of learning. They aim at developing the students' skills and knowledge through an educationally sound method and approach. Examples of formative assessment are: quizzes, short written tasks, short oral presentations, etc. All forms of on-going assessment fall within this category.

Summative assessment aims to measure or summarize, what a student has grasped, and typically occurs at the end of a course or unit of instruction.

Norm·Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Tests

The distinction between norm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing.

In norm-referenced tests, each test-taker's score is interpreted in relation to a mean (average score), median (middle score), standard deviation (extent of variance in scores), and/or percentile rank. The purpose i.e such tests is to place test·takers along a mathematical continuum in rank order. Scores are usually reported back to the test-taker in the form of a numerical score.

Criterion-referenced tests are designed to give test-takers feedback, usually in the form of grades, on specific course or lesson objectives Classroom tests involving the students in only one class, and connected to a curriculum, are typical of criterion-referenced testing.

MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION:CRITERION- VERSUS NORM-REFERENCED TESTING

Many educators and members of the public fail to grasp the distinctions between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced testing. It is common to hear the two types of testing referred to as if they serve the same purposes, or shared the same characteristics. Much confusion can be eliminated if the basic differences are understood.


Dimension Criterion-ReferencedTests

Norm-ReferencedTests

Purpose To determine whether each student has achieved specific skills or concepts.To find out how much students know before instruction begins and after it has finished.

To rank each student with respect to theachievement of others in broad areas of knowledge.To discriminate between high and low achievers.




Content Measures specific skills which make up a designated curriculum. These skills are identified by teachers and curriculum experts.Each skill is expressed as an instructional objective.

Measures broad skill areas sampled from a variety of textbooks, syllabi, and the judgments of curriculum experts.




ItemCharacteristics

Each skill is tested by at least four items in order to obtain an adequate sample of student performance and to minimize the effect of guessing.The items which test any given skill are parallel in difficulty.

Each skill is usually tested by less than four items.Items vary in difficulty.

Items are selected that discriminate between high and low achievers.




ScoreInterpretation

Each individual is compared with a preset standard for acceptable achievement. The performance of other examinees is irrelevant.A student's score is usually expressed as a percentage.

Student achievement is reported for individual skills.

Each individual is compared with other examinees and assigned a score--usually expressed as a percentile, a grade equivalent score.Student achievement is reported for broad skill areas, although some norm-referenced tests do report student achievement for individual skills.

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE TESTING: A BRIEF HISTORY

Discrete Point and Integrative Testing

Discrete point tests are constructed on the assumption that language can be broken down into its component parts and that those parts can be tested successfully. These components are the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and various units of language (discrete points) of phonology / graphology, morphology, lexicon, syntax, and discourse. It was claimed that an overall language proficiency test, then, should sample all four skills and as many linguistic discrete points as possible.

What does an integrative test look like? Two types of tests have historically been claimed to be examples of integrative tests: cloze tests and dictations.

A cloze test is a reading passage (perhaps 150 to 300 words) in which roughly every sixth or seventh word has been deleted; the test-taker is required to supply words that fit into those blanks.

Dictation is a familiar language-teaching technique that evolved into a testing technique. learners listen to a passage of 100 to 150 words read aloud by an administrator (or audiotape) and write what they bear, using correct spelling.

Communicative Language Testing.

The test is designed on communicative performance.Bachman and Palmer (1996. pp.700 also emphasized the importance of strategic competence (the ability to employ communicative strategies to compensate for breakdowns as well as to enhance the rhetorical effect of utterances) in the process of communication.

Performance-Based AssessmentPerformance based assessment of language typically involves oral production, written production, open-ended responses, integrated performance (across skill areas), group performance, and other interactive tasks. A characteristics of many (but not all) performance-based language assessments is the presence of interactive tasks. In such cases, the assessments involve learners in actually performing the behavior that we want to measure. In interactive tasks, test-takers are measured in the act of speaking, requesting, responding, or in combining listening and speaking, and in integrating reading and writing.

formative assessment gives feedback on the progress and success of learning. they aim at developing...

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