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Important Exams and the Concept of Good Practice. Dávid Gergely. Interpret focus of lecture. Hardly feasible task to cover all important exams M any websites, information booklets, etc. provide the information anyway, for interested fellow professionals New focus about
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Important Exams and the Concept of Good Practice Dávid Gergely
Interpret focus of lecture • Hardly feasible task to cover all important exams • Many websites, information booklets, etc. provide the information anyway, for interested fellow professionals • New focus about • quality of examinations • what may be considered good professional practice. • „Tools for fishing”: a series of criterial questions
What can you do? • Study test specifications and other printed info packs, mock exams and any published docs. • Study regulations • Carry out an observation task, collect information.
Studying the specifications 1 • Is the target language sampledwidely enough? • The nature of foreign lang. Proficiency • Skills, communicatve language activities, abilities • Are all four skills + grammar/vocab tested? • Litmus test: Is listening comprehension tested?
Studying the specifications 2 • Is the candidate required to produce a large sample of the target language? • Are the papers long enough? • Not enough to include 5-6 papers, but there must be enough items etc. in each to give candidates as many chances (fresh new starts, fairness) to show what they know. • In terms of our litmus listening test, how many items based on how many sound tapes (hangzóanyag) is good enough? • 20 items based on 3 sound tapes is minimum.
Explanation • Not covering enough skills (subskills), activities, abilities and/or doing that through too few items is called the underrepresentation of the test construct – a typical problem with many tests. • The difficulty of inferring underlying proficiency from test proficiency. • The quest for information: • Student 1: 1,0,1,0,0,1,0,0,1,1 • Student 2: 1,2,1,0,2,0,1,1,0,2
Studying the specifications 3 • Static specs of papers, tasks types, etc. Do not speak about what the test provider do to ensure quality • Is the testing process specified too? • Procedural validity
Model testing process: test material • Drafting tasks • Moderation • Revision of drafts • Pretesting draft tasks • Revision 2 • Administration • Post-test quality control • Score calculation • Standard (level) setting
Model testing process: examiner • Training • Benchmarking • Administration • Post-test quality control • Score calculation • Standard (level) setting
Study regulations, observe practice • Is the model testing procedure followed? • If it is not followed in every respect, how do they „make up for it”?
Applying the procedure to ensure validity • There must be a quality control mechanism that assumes, especially: • Candidate response data (all such data) are collected systematically • Response data are analysed statistically after the pretest, but most importantly the post-test, in order to decide how good the items were, how well the raters marked, whether intended level was maintained, etc. • Are response data collected systematically? • Are the data analysed statistically?
Illustrations of data problems • How is the oral scored? • Two raters added up? Averaged? • Raters agree? Separately given scores recorded? • Is it possible to put together, candidate by candidate, scores from the written papers with scores from the oral?
Data? Analysis? Why the hell? • The Holy Grail of language testing • Want to find out candidates’ lang. proficiency • Not directly measurable • Must use tools (items, raters, criteria, i.e. test method) to make that proficiency observable • Whatever the method, it will unavoidably influence test performance and results • Unknown proficiency+method effect = scored test performance
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Study regulations, observe practice • Has the exam gone through accreditation procedure by the Ministry? • Many exams have, some have not (list www.nyak.hu) • The Hungarian accreditation system not perfect, but at least • a body of experts to review exams regularly and on demand • documentation must be submitted • Some achievements
Study regulations, observe practice • How soon are results announced? • If announced very soon, it is unlikely to be a good test, as it is impossible to do the quality control work that needs to be done.
Study regulations, observe practice • Are most complaints handled favourably for the candidates? • If quality control procedures are weak, such practice sends a wrong message: • „Kaparj kurta neked is jut”, making the candidate responsible for finding problematic items, raters, etc. • Implicit in law • Unfair. Quality control should not depend on candidates’ awareness of their rights.
Study regulations, observe practice • Are pass rates very high? • Bear national educational context in mind: • falling numbers in the age-group where candidates might come from (14-22) • falling foreign language education standards • should predict falling pass rates too if standards (CEFR levels) are maintained . • The horrible case of a prestigious German exam 10 years ago.
Summary • What is good testing practice? • Use this checklist of questions • Read up on language testing and add more questions • What you need • a keen eye • a sane mind.
Required reading • McNamara, T. (2000). Language Testing. Oxford Introductions to Language Study. Series Editor: H.G Widdowson.Oxford: OUP. • The required chapters are • The Testing Cycle (Chapter 3) pp. 23-33; Validity: testing the test (Chapter 5) pp. 47-54; • Measurement (Chapter 6) pp.55-65.