SKKN môn Tiếng Anh (THPT)

These tests include multiple-choice, completion, matching, and true-false items; 2 the subjective or essay tests, which allow a student to impose his own organization on the material an

I) Reasons for this study:

When a person hear the term evaluation, the first thought that often comes to mind is tests or grades Can you remember how you felt as a young child waiting for the teacher to return a test paper from a difficult examination? What about the sleepless nights before an important examination in school or the wait for the postcard reporting a final grade?

Although the teacher gives many tests to measure how well the student has attained the objectives and to assign his final grade, evaluation plays a role in many other teacher’s dicisions Before beginning instruction, teachers often need to assess the students backgrounds or entry behavior to set the appropriate level for instruction During instruction it is sometimes necessary to diagnose students’strength and weakness to discover why they may be having difficulty in a particular subject The teacher may have to assess students attitudes about classroom procedures and perhaps change his behavior to accommodate them These are just a few of the reasons for obtaining evaluation information For teacher to evaluate properly they must know what kind of judgements and decisions are called for and how to gather information for their decisions

II) Scope of the study:

From that point of view, I would like to present this paper which covers only a small area of study, and focusses on two questions “what are teacher-made tests?” and “how can the theory be applied to English tests?”

III Methods of the study:

Three main methods have been applied, that is, synthesis, analysis and illustration

IV References:

Making a good test has been a big challenge to any instructors and they have made great contribution and studies in this area Therefore I do not want to create any thing new but sum up and learn from others’ experience:

- Short- cut statistics for teacher-made tests by Deiderich.P.B

- Teaching for learnining by D.Feness

- And other reference books

I) Kinds of teacher- made tests.

II) Planning the tests

III) Writing test items

1 Multiple-choice items

2 Completion items

3 True- false items

4 Essay questions

I Kinds of teacher-made tests:

According to D.Feness, there are two kinds of tests, that is, teacher-made and standardized ones Standardized tests are useful for determining how local achievement compares to national norms The teacher- made tests are more useful for measuring individual classroom instruction

Teacher –made achievement tests are usually divided into two catergories: (1) the objective tests, which are highly structured and limit the

type of response a student can make The answer key desinates a response as correct or incorrect These tests include multiple-choice, completion, matching, and true-false items; (2) the subjective or essay tests, which

allow a student to impose his own organization on the material and present it

on his own words In scoring an essay test, the teacher must make qualitative decisions about how close a student’s answer is to modal answer

There are no rules for using using an objective or subjective test other than the consideration of what the teacher want to measure and the available time for the task Many teachers use combinations of both types of tests, since each has its own merits and limitations A comparision of essay and objective tests appear in the table below:

A comparision of essay and objective test:

Requires the student to express

himself in his own words, using

information from his own back

ground and knowledge

Requires the student to select correct answer from given option, or to supply an anwer limited to one word or phrase

Can tap high level of reasoning

such as requred in inference

organization of ideas, comparision

and contrast

Can also tap high level of reasoning such as reqired in inference, organization of idea, comparision and constrast

Does not measure purely

factual information effectively

Measures knowledge of fact efficiently

Covers only a limited field of

knowledge in any one test Essay

questions take so long to answer that

relatively few can be answer in a

given period of time Also, the

student who is esspecially fluent can

often avoid disscussing poin of which

his is unsure

Covers a broad field of knowledge in one test Since objective questions may be answer quickly, one test may contain many questions.A abroad coverage help provide reliable mesurement

Encorages students to learn

how to organize their own ideal and

express them effectively

Encorages students to build

up a broad background of knowledge and ability

Requires only a few questions

for the test Task must be clearly

defined, genaral enough to offer

some leeway, specific enough to set

limits

Requires writing many questions for a test.Wording must avoid ambiguities and “ giveaway”.Distractors should

misconceptions

Usually very time-consuming

Permits teachers to comment

directly on the reasoning process of

Answers generally scored only right or wrong, but scoring is very accurate and consitent

individual pupils However, an

answer may be scored differently by

different teachers or by the same

teacher at different time

(From Making the classroom test- A guide for teachers by Educational Testing Service)

II) Planning the test:

Before beginning to write any test items, the teacher should perform three tasks These steps can alleviate many problems in the nature and scope

of the examination

1 Identify the learning outcomes to be mesured by the test If you

have writen objective before instruction, you should have little difficulty in completing this planing phase If you have no specified objectives for the unit, this initial step will take you more time and efford

2 Outline the subject- matter content to be measured by the test

This step is taken to ensure that you identify all the important content

3 Prepare a test plan or table of specifications The second is a two

dimensional table on which the learning outcomes are listed along one side and the subject-matter topic along the other side For example:

Learning outcomes Describing a person

-Apperance

-Personality

Regardless of the type of the test items written for an examination, there are some genaral guidelines about writing tests that are always applicable (Chase, 1974)

+ Avoid replication of the textbook in writing test items.

+ begin writing the test well in advance of the tesr, and allow time for test revision.

+ Avoid trick items and procedures.

+ Make sure the directions are clear.

III) Writing test items.

1.Multiple-choice items:

The multiple-choice item contains a stem, which identifies a problem stuation, and several alternatives or options, which provide possible solutions

to the problem The alternatives include a correct answer and several plausible wrong answers or distractors The sterm may be stated as a direct question or an in complete statement The student’s task is to the correct or best response from the list of alternatives provided For example:

Sterm: The beautiful village is sheltered the weather by the mountain

Responses: A.in B.from C.with D.by

Most multiple-choice items offer four or five choices to reduce the students’ chances of obtaining the correct response by guessing The quality

of a multiple choice item is the combination of the clarity of the stem and the skill with which the various alternatives are written Here are some suggestions for writing multiple- choice items:

1 Make all alternative responses gramatically consistent with the stem and parallel in form.

2 Avoid making the correct response consitenly longer or shorter than the others.

3 Underline negative wording whenever it is used in the sterm of an item.

4 Avoid overuse of alternatives “all of the above” and “none of the above”.

5 Vary the possition of the correct answer in a random manner.

6 Make certain each item is independent from the other items in the test.

The multiple choice item has numerous merits First, it can measure objectives from entry knowledge level to the most complex level Second, the teacher can sample a great deal of information in a relatively short time Third, scoring is completely objective Last, the four or five choice redure the possibility of obtaining a correct answer through guessing

The main problem with this is the difficulty of writing test items and the students complaint that there is more than one defensible correct answer However , this can be remedied by carefully written items or “item analysis”

2.Matching items:

The matching item is a modification of the multiple-choice form A series of stems appear in one column and the responses in another The student must select the option that is correctly associated with the stem The following is an example:

Choose a right sentence from the right- hand column and place the letter identifying it on the line preceding the number of the term

1) 7.15 a, It is a quarter to nine

2) 8.45 b, It is ten past nine

3) 9.10 c, It is half past eleven

4) 11.30 d, It is a quarter past seven

-5) 12.25 e,It is twenty five past twelve

The following are some suggestions for constructing matching tests:

1 Include only homogenious material in each matching exercise.

2 Indicate clearly the basis on which the matching is so to be done.

3 The questions should contain at least five and not more than fifteen items.

4 The items in the response column should be arranged in a systematic order Dates should be in chronological order, whereas names

of people, terms and so on should be in alphabetical order This reduces the amount of time needed to search for the correct response.

5 All the items should be on a single page.

The matching item is most appropriate for assessing associations It is not readily adaptable for measuring complex level of learning

3.Completion items:

A completion, or fill-in-the-blank, item confront the individual with a statement for which his must supply a missing word or phrase This type of item emphasize recall of previously learned material rather than recognition

Ex: A person who drives a taxi is called a(an)

The following are some suggestions for constructing completion items:

1 Omit key words and phrases rather than trivial details

2 Avoid overmultilated statements.

3 If possible, item should reqire a single- word answer

4 Avoid lifting statements directly from the text

5 Make the blanks of uniform length

6 Avoid grammatical clues to the expected answer

7 Arrange the test with the answers in a column for easier scoring

8 Prepare a scoring key that contains all acceptable answers.

The completion item is relatively easy to construct It requres recall of information, so it reduces the possibility of guessing the correct answer from the correct response

It has its limits.Scoring completion items is difficult because constructing them for only one anwer is difficult Second, answer is restricted

to a few words and the items tend to measure recall of specific fact rather than more complex learning outcomes

4.True-false items:

The true-false item is the declarative sentence that the test taker must decide as correct (true) or incorrect(false)

Ex :T/F:The earth moves around the sun

The following are some suggestions for constructing True-false items:

1 Include only one central idea in each statement.

2 Word the statement so precisely that it is unequivocally true or false.

3 Keep the statements short and use simple language

4 Use negative statements sparingly and avoid duoble negatives.

5 Avoid use of specific determiners such as “always”, “never” and

“seldom”.

6 Attribute statements of opinion to a sourse.

7 Avoid a disproportionate number of either true or false statements.

8 Explain the design method of marking before the students begin the test We may have them write out the word “true” or “false” or circle the correct letter.

The advantage of the true-false item is that it ten to be brief The teacher can ask questions covering a great deal of material and can score the item in a short time But they have their limit because they emphasize memorization of fact and are open to guess work

5.Essay Questions :

Essay questions are used to their best advantage in measuring higher - order mental processes - application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation and should not be used to measure know ledge of facts or principles They provide an opportunity for the student to use his own words , style and organization in dealing with the subject matter of a course

However, they have their limitations and here are three main ones First, the questions take more time to answer than objective items, limiting the numbes of quetstions that can be asked and ther limiting the content coverage of the examination

Second , subjective scoring makes essay test results lower in reliability than objective tests, which use more precise scoring A lot of factors can influence a teacher’s scoring of an essay question such as handwriting, the use of pen, ink, spelling and grammatical errors and so on These effect can

be either positive or negative

Last, although essay questions take less time to write than objective questions, they require more time to be scored For this reason , teachers with large classes often limit essay testing to very specific objectives

1 use essay question to measuse complex learning outcome only.

` 2 Relate the questions as directly as possible to the learning outcomes being measured.

3 Formulate questions that present a clear, definite task to the student For example:

a describe your close friend

b describe the personality of your close friend Focuses on a particular point

4.Provide ample time for answering and give suggested time limits for each question.

Evaluation occurs throughout the teaching- learning process rather than solely at the end It is very important because after the assessment, a more appropriate starting point for instruction can be determined that may call for an upward or downward revision of orginal goals Making a good test is not easy at all , especialy when the teacher makes it himself So I hope this study will be a little use ful reference Good evaluation goes beyond constructing test and assessing examination results The effective teacher needs to constantly evaluate decisions throughout the teaching - learning process