Recognize The 8 Kinds Of Language Testing & The 6 Types Of Tests

There are eight kinds of testing. They are as follows:

1. Direct Testing:

Testing is said to be direct when the student is required to perform directly the skill which we wish to measure, e.g. we ask students to write compositions if we want to know how well they can write compositions and we ask them to speak if we want to know how well they can pronounce a language.

2. Indirect Testing:

Indirect testing attempts to measure the abilities which underlie the skills in which we are interested. E.g. we test pronunciation ability by asking students to identify pairs of words which rhyme with each other.

3. Objective Testing:

It doesn’t require judgment on the part of the scorer because scoring here is objective. It won’t change even if the scorer has been changed. A multiple-choice test is an example of this kind of test.

4. Subjective Testing:

It requires judgment on the part of the scorer because scoring here is subjective. The grades in subjective testing depend on the impressions of the scorer. These impressions are not the same among different scorers. Scoring a composition is an example of this kind of testing.

5. Discrete Point Testing:

It refers to the testing of one element at a time, item by item. This kind of testing is always indirect. Each test involves a particular item. Testing particular grammatical structures is an example of this kind of testing.

6. Integrative Testing:

It includes many language elements in the completion of a task. It might involve writing a composition, taking notes while listening to a text and completing a cloze passage.

7. Norm-Referenced Testing:

This kind of testing relates one student’s performance to that of other students. We don’t say that a student is capable of doing well in the language but we say the student gained a score that placed him/her in the top five students who have taken the same test.

8. Criterion-Referenced Testing:

The purpose of this kind of testing is to classify students according to whether they can perform some tasks satisfactorily. Those who perform the tasks satisfactorily ‘pass’, those who don’t, ‘fail’. We measure students’ progress concerning meaningful criteria.

6 Types of Tests

There are six different types of tests. They are as follows:

1. Placement Test:

It is used to place new students in the right class in a school. It assesses students’ productive and receptive skills and is designed to show how good a student is in English concerning a previously agreed system of levels.

2. Diagnostic Test:

It is used to discover student problems, difficulties or deficiencies in a course. We use this type of test to know students’ strengths and weaknesses so as to be able to do something about them.

3. Progress/Achievement Test:

It is designed to measure students’ language and their skill progress concerning the syllabus they have been following. This type is directly related to language courses and is done during the course.

4. Final Progress/Achievement Test:

Students do this test at the end of the course to measure students’ achievement of the course objectives or goals.

5. Proficiency Test:

It is not necessarily based on certain courses that students may have previously taken. Most students take this type of test to be admitted to a foreign university, get a job, or obtain some kind of certificate. Teachers design this test to measure students’ knowledge and ability in a language.

6. Aptitude Test:

Teachers design this test to discover whether a student has a talent or basic ability for learning a new language or not.

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Writing Effective Test Items: The Definitive Guide

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