There are shown six types of tests in the article which can be used in tests. Each has its own construction and typical character in education.
Multiple-choice tests. Multiple-choice items can be used to measure both simple knowledge and complex concepts. Since multiple-choice questions can be answered quickly, you can assess students’ mastery of many topics on an hour exam. In addition, the items can be easily and reliably scored. Good multiple-choice questions are difficult to write-see “Multiple-Choice and Matching Tests” for guidance on how to develop and administer this type of test.
True-false tests. Because random guessing will produce the correct answer half the time, true-false tests are less reliable than other types of exams. However, these items are appropriate for occasional use. Some faculty who use true-false questions add an “explain” column in which students write one or two sentences justifying their response. [1]
Matching tests. Essay tests enable you to judge students’ abilities to organize, integrate, interpret material, and express themselves in their own words, research indicates that students study more efficiently for essay-type examinations than for selection (multiple-choice) tests: students preparing for essay tests focus on broad issuers, general concepts, and interrelationships rather than on specific details, and this studying results in somewhat better student performance regardless of the type of exam they are given (McKeachie, 1986). Essay tests also give you an opportunity to comment on students’ progress, the quality of their thinking, the depth of their understanding, and the difficulties they may be having. However, because essay tests pose only a few questions, their content validity may be low. In addition, the reliability of essay tests is compromised by subjectivity or inconsistencies in grading. [2]
A variation of an essay test asks students to correct mock answers. One faculty member prepares a test that requires students to correct, expand, or refute mock essays. Two weeks before the exam date, he distributes ten to twelve essay questions, which he discussed with students in class. For the actual exam, he selects four of the questions and prepares well-written but intellectually flawed answers for the students to edit, correct, expand, and refute. The mock essays contain common misunderstandings, correct but incomplete responses, or absurd notions; in some cases the answer has only one or two flaws. He reports that students seem to enjoy this type of test more than traditional examinations.
Short-answer tests. Depending on your objectives, short-answer questions can call for one or two sentences or a long paragraph. Short-answer tests are easier to write, though they take longer to score, than multiple-choice tests.
They also give you some opportunity to see how well students can express their thoughts, though they are not as useful as longer essay responses for this purpose.
Problem sets. In courses in mathematics and the sciences, your tests can include problem sets, as a rule of thumb, allow students ten minutes to solve a problem you can do in two minutes. [3]
Oral exams. Though common at the graduate level, oral exams are rarely used for undergraduates except in foreign language classes. In other classes they are usually time-consuming, too anxiety provoking for students, and difficult to score unless the instructor tape-records the answers. However, a math professor has experimented with individual thirty-minute oral tests in a small seminar class. Students receive the questions in advance and are allowed to drop one of their choosing. During the oral exam, the professor probes students’ level of understanding of the theory and principles behind the theorems, he reports that about eight students per day can be tested. [4]
Performance tests. Performance tests ask students to demonstrate proficiency in conducting an experiment, executing a series of steps in a reasonable amount of time, following instructions, creating drawings, manipulating materials or equipment, or reacting to real or simulated situations. Performance tests can be administered individually or in groups. They are seldom used in colleges and universities because they are logistically difficult to set up, hard to score, and the content of most courses does not necessarily lend itself to this type of testing. However, performance tests can be useful in classes that require students to demonstrate their skills.
‒ Specify the criteria to be used for rating or scoring (for example, the level of accuracy in performing the steps in sequence or completing the task within a specified time limit).
‒ State the problem so that students know exactly what they are supposed to do (if possible, conditions of a performance test should mirror a real-life situation).
‒ Give students a chance to perform the task more than once or to perform several task samples. [5]
«Create-a-game» exams. For one midterm, ask students to create either a board game, word game, or trivia game that covers the range of information relevant to your course. Students must include the rules, game board, game pieces, and whatever else is needed to play. For example, students in a history of psychology class created «Freud's Inner Circle», in which students move tokens such as small cigars and toilet seats around a board each time they answer a question correctly, and «Psychologies», a card game in which players select and discard cards until they have a full hand of theoretically compatible psychological theories, beliefs, or assumptions.
Another test format that could be applied in the language classroom is dictation. We commonly use dictations to check spelling; nevertheless, it could be applied to test listening comprehension, as well. It is obvious that to dictate something we have either to speak or read. It means that while writing a dictation the student has to be able to perceive the spoken language efficiently enough to produce in on paper. For this purpose the student will require a variety of techniques such as schemata and its application, predictions, guessing and context clues, etc. Further, it also is constrained that dictation help the students develop their abilities to distinguish between phonemes, separate words and intonation. Besides, dictations function in spoken language; thereof the students have an opportunity to learn to understand the language through listening.
To conclude what has been mentioned above we can agree with Weir (1990:49) that dictations will force the students to use the variety of skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. Heaton (1990:28) advises that to enable the students comprehend successfully, the teacher need to read carefully and clearly, however avoiding slow, word for word reading. Moreover, to allow the students to check what they have written the repetition will be required. The author of the paper when giving dictations to her students had encountered the need for repetition for a number of times. The following could be explained by many factors, such as the students are not able to perceive spoken speech through listening; they are not able to elaborate various guessing, inferring of the meaning techniques or their pace of writing is simply rather slow. [6]
Thus, we entirely support the next statement claimed by Heaton that it is wise after the first reading of a dictation to ask a set of comprehension questions to make the students aware of the general idea of a text. It will simplify the process of the understanding. Notwithstanding, even an ideal variant will definitely contain some drawbacks. The same could be applied to dictations. First, to write a dictation, the student requires a good memory. S/he has to retain information they have heard in order to display it later; moreover, the information should be identical to the original. Therefore, we can claim that the student has to recognize at least seventy-eighty per cent of what has been dictated. In that case we short-term memory should be well developed. Apart from memory, scoring could be problematic, as well. Weir (1990:50) believes that is difficult to decide what to pay attention to: whether to evaluate spelling and grammar, or just perceived information. Thus, the teacher has to work out a certain set of criteria, as we have already mentioned that in Chapter 1, the criteria s/he will be operating with. Besides, the students should be acquainted with it, as well. [7]
In addition, Weir (ibid.) says that dictating is more efficient if it is recorded on the tape and is delivered by a native speaker. It could mean that the students will have a chance to fell themselves in the real-life situation; for this is the actual purpose they learn the language for. The following has been expanded by Heaton (ibid.) that speaking face to face with a speaker is even more beneficial, for we can compensate the lack of understanding by his/her facial expression, gestures and movements. Listening to a cassette does not provide us with such a chance, and therefore, it is more challenging and requires more developed skills to understand a recorded message.
References:
- Grellet. 1981. Developing Reading skills. Cambridge University Press
- Heaton, J. 1990. Classroom Testing. Longman
- Hedge. T. 2000. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford University Press
- Hughes, A. 1989. Testing for Language Teachers. Cambridge University Press
- Hicks, D. Littlejohn, A. 1998. Cambridge English for Schools (CES). Two. Cambridge University Press.
- Hicks, D. Littlejohn, A. 1997. Cambridge English for Schools (CES). Level Two. Cambridge University Press.
- Kruse, A. 1987. Vocabulary in Context in Vocabulary Learning. Methodology in TESOL. New York. Newbury House Publishers.
