What Makes a Good Test

Assessment serves as a crucial part of education as its major function is to measure learners' achievements and their level of proficiency. Tests are now the most widely used method of assessing knowledge and measuring improvement in learning. 

At the same time, there are voices against tests claiming they are usually of poor quality and are unlikely to assess the learners' knowledge accurately.

In this article, we are going to look at the types of assessment and the most common kinds of tests, their benefits, and more importantly, the features of quality tests and the general requirements for effective testing.

Assessment serves several purposes:

Teachers mostly use two major types of assessment to evaluate the knowledge and progress of their students: formative and summative. 

According to the function, tests fall into several categories, such as:

With reference to the learning process, we are going to concentrate on achievement tests. They are connected to a particular course and check how successful the learners are at mastering the course material and achieving the course objectives. There are progress and final achievement tests. 

Progress tests belong to formative assessment. They take place throughout the course. Their aim is to follow the student's progress and pay attention to the most challenging points.

In contrast, final tests are carried out at the end of the course and can be administered by special examination boards or even by ministries of education. The goal here is usually summing up the course and seeing what the student has already learned, to which extent, and whether they are ready to continue their education.

A well-designed and quality test is a great tool to obtain evidence of learners' performance and has certain advantages over other forms of assessment. The benefits are as follows:

Having outlined the advantages of tests, let us talk about the qualities that make a good test. 

Alignment 

In every test, it is important to always have a vision of where it comes out and what follows next. The test should be a part of a complex system that has to have a final aim. Before assigning the test, it is better to ask yourself why it is so necessary, and how students would benefit from completing it.

Reliability 

Reliability implies that the same test can be administered in the same group of learners of the same ability at a different time and the results will be the same or very similar to the previous test. The more similar the results are, the more reliable the test is. 

There are several factors that may affect the reliability of your test. Among them are:

• factors related to the test which include:

• factors related to the testee like:

• such factors related to the testing procedure as:

Validity 

Validity means that the test measures what it is intended to measure. In other words, the material tested should include the vocabulary or grammar that the learners have studied. What is more, the types of tasks should be appropriate to measure this material. For instance, if there is a task that checks the writing skill, it should include actual writing. 

Objectivity 

Objectivity deals with the fact that the evaluation of the test should be carried out without a subjective personal judgment, only on the result of the learners' performance.

Administration 

Good administration implies that the test is cost- and time-effective and can be conducted with clear and uniform guidelines. Sometimes even the easiness of the administration procedure may affect the results of the testee negatively.

Apart from the key characteristics of the test, we find it essential to mention some other essential points which can make the assessment effective.

Make sure you warn your students about the test in advance. Very often a test, especially a final one, is high-stakes and requires thorough preparation and even some psychological readiness. 

Therefore, when a test is carried out all of a sudden, learners may have a high affective filter. It is the imaginary psychological wall or barrier that can block the mental processes and prevent the learners from successful language learning or production. This filter is usually high when the level of anxiety, embarrassment, or fear rises. 

Consider weighting of the points in the test. If you develop the test by yourself or adapt it, it is important to consider awarding a relevant number of points for various tasks. 

In the test, there may be some tasks that require more effort from the learners. It means that their contribution to the overall score of the test should be higher, therefore, these tasks should be worth more points. 

Familiarizing the learners with the criteria. In the test, there may be subjective tasks, for instance, writing or speaking ones which are checked with the help of the criteria, such as content, register, grammar range, etc. 

As you can see, there are so many factors that make the test good, representative, and effective. At the same time, as always, everything takes effort, studying, and trying, so we hope that this article has been helpful with at least two of the points.