Types of Testing:

TESTING

Testing can be categorized according to the types of information that they provide. There are four sorts of tests; the proficiency test, achievement test, diagnostic test and placement test. These kind of tests help the teacher to know if they are good and continues working with them or he/she needs to do a new test according with her or his needs.

Proficiency test: measure the people´s ability regardless any training they may have had in that language.

An example could be an English test done at the beginning of a course, to see how the students are doing with the language.

Achievement test: Are based in the language course, their purpose being to establish how successful individual students, group of students, or the courses themselves have been in achieving objectives.

For example, the ones done regularly in a class, so the teacher is able to see how much the students have learned.

Diagnostic Test: This kind of tests is intended to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of the students, so the teacher can determine which areas are the ones that need more attention.

An example could be a complete test done at the beginning of a course through which the teacher could realize what are the strengths and weaknesses of his students.

Placement Test: As its name says, theses tests are developed to place a student in the level according to his knowledge.
In some English courses this is a requirement, so the students doesn’t start from
the first level but for the level they got in the test.

Direct versus Indirect Testing

•Direct testing: this kind of test requires the learner to perform precisely the skill that we (teacher) wish to measure. Speaking and writing are easier to carry out with direct testing because it provides us with information about the student’s ability in each skill. But in listening and reading learner must perform these abilities successfully on their own.

An example could be measure how well students can elaborate a composition, essay, letter etc.

•Indirect testing: it attempts to measure the abilities that underlie the skills in which we are interested to measure.
Lados (1961) proposed an effective method for indirect testing in listening ability, an example could be a paper and pencil test in which the learner needs to identify pair words which rhyme with each other.

Discrete point versus integrative testing

•Discrete point: a testing of one element at a time.
For example after seeing a topic, you could apply a test but from that specific topic that was seen in the class before.
•Integrative Testing: it requires the students to combine various language elements in order to complete the task.
Some examples of integrative testing is composing an essay, taking notes while listening to a lecture, and dictation.

Norm- referenced versus criterion- referenced testing

•Norm-referenced testing: it relates one students score with the other students. It does not demonstrate directly what the learners are capable of accomplishing in the language individually.

This particular test can be done individually, but what is going to vary is the answer, when the question of what score did the learner obtain. Example, the students score is said with percentage and related with the others students score.

•Criterion-referenced testing: its purpose is to classify people to whether or not they are able to perform some task or set of task correctly. They set meaningful standards in terms of what students can do, which do not change with different groups of candidates, and motivate their students to achieve in those standards.
An example of this kind of test is going to have a certain task, performance will be evaluated. The ones who performed successfully will “pass” and those who didn´t will “fail”.

Objective testing versus subjective testing

These two concepts differ from each other depending on how exactly we want to score our students’ test. If we no judgment is required in the part of the scorer the scoring is objective. Then, when we establish some judgments to the scoring, it is said that is subjective.
The less subjective the testing is the better, but it will mostly depend on the type of the test.

Examples:

Multiple Choice Tests: Objective.

Composition Rubrics: Subjective.

Computer Adaptive Testing

Computer adaptive testing refers to a test in which the difficulty will vary depending on the performance of the student, if he answers correctly the difficulty will increase but if he answers incorrectly an easier item will be presented.
So, this type of test will adapt itself to the student’s abilities.

Communicative Language Testing

This kind of tests will try to measure the ability to take part in acts of communication.