ASSESSING READING

Some difficulties in assessing language learners imply the issues regarding invisible skills such as reading and luistening, since we cannot see the process in our students´ minds. That is why we must consider construct models or models of receptive skills to design assessment. A relevant aspect to take into account is the importance of reading in the overall institutional assessment of our learners.

Reading is a complex skill that is challenging to those who assess. It is fundamental for most overall assessments at the K-12 levels in USA, and a mayor component in an intensive English program for students´success in tertiary level of education, while it is not important in conversational classes. In all cases, teachers asure that students are familiarized with the format and directions of the examinations.
The processes that occur during reading may vary according to the texts. Bottom-up skills refers to the recognition and decoding letters, words, and sentences, while top-down refers to the process of entire texts. "Text applies to both linear passages of prose as well as a wide variety of non-linear sources of information such as maps and pie charts." (p.45) A starting point for reading assessment is the target skills that our students develop, as well as the subskills and strategies that are relevant within that teaching/learning context. Classroom assessment requires focus on mayor and minor (contibuting) skills in reading. These are described as follows.

MAYOR READING SKILLS
-skimming and scanning, establishing overall organization of the text
-careful reading for main ideas, supporting details, author´s arguments and purpose, relationship of paragraphs, and facts versus opinion
-informatiuon transfer from nonlinear texts
-drawing inferences from stated / implied content

MINOR OR ENABLING READING SKILLS
-understanding at the sentence level - vocabulary, syntax, cohesive markers
-understanding at inter-sentence level - identifying what pronouns refer to, recognizing discourse markers
- understanding components of nonlinear texts - the meaning of graph or chart labels, keys, and the ability to find and interpret intersection points

ASSESSMENT AND EDUCATION IN OUR MEDIA

Teaching practices involve many aspects that encompass teaching/learning processes. Data concerning (Informe del Estado de la Educación, Costa Rica, 2010) our students show an index of educational opportunities where 40% of the 17 to 21 year olders complete high school due to factors such as resources and characteristics of educational climate from their homes in a country where youngsters need at least complete high school and a year of collegeor tertiary education. Thus, evaluating this entire process takes mayor relevance, focussing on assessment for it "refers to a v ariety of ways of collecting information on a learner´s language ability or achievement."(p.xv) being testing the part of measuring the learner´s achievement, and an essential issue in our quotidian endeavor.

The etire curriculum cycle in education enfolds the process of developing assessment, embracing planning, development, administration, analysis, feedback, and reflection. Planning involves the consideration of the goals and objectives of the linguistic abilities we expect in our students, deciding "the best means of assessment for those objectives."(p.5)

OTHER TEST ITEMS

In language tests, there are other options of common subjective items we can use. Among these, we may use cloze and gap fill, short answer and completion items, and essay questions. The following is a brief description of these items.

CLOZE AND GAP-FILL ITEMS

Cloze testing

The fist time that Cloze testing was used was around 1950´s to evaluate reading comprehension. In this test, a word is systematically deleated from any written text. Now, in a conventional cloze test, we remove a word every five to eight words, and the student has to read around the word to complete the text with an appropriate term, in meaning and structure.

Gap-fill

Gap-fill testing has a blank in a sentence. The student has to fill in the missing word or phrase. The gap may be a function word (articles, prepositions, conjuntions) with only one correct answer, or semantic (noun, adjectives, verbs, adverbs) with a variety of possible correct answers.

Rational deletion cloze

This is an item similar to gap fill. It has words deleted for assessment purposes, for example, focused on certain grammar points like articles, prepositions, pronouns, verb tense, and agreement, within one same paragraph. It can be formatted into a multiple choice cloze, too, so that the student has a limitted amount of options to select the word that is best for each space.

Some general recommendations to write cloze/gap-fill items are the following:

- Make sure there is enough space to write the answers (which should not be very long).

-Offer enough context for students to presume what goes in the blank.

-Provide the same length of blanks. The main body of thw question should predeed the blanks.

-Allow more than one possible answer when grading.

-Let the initial sentence in the paragraph complete to set context, so put the gap after it.

SHORT ANSWER/ COMPLETION ITEMS

There are some advantages and disadvantages in short answer/completion items. Among the advantages, these items help students not only to recognize but to learn and know the answer. Another advantage is less guessing, for they must produce the answer. Also, they are easy to construct. Besides, they are valuable to check what, where, when, who content, intense text comprehension, gist, and higher order thinking skills. Last, they are easy to construct. On the other hand, some disadvantages include discouraging memorization of fact since students produce language to answer, the time it takes the student to answer, and the time it takes the teacher to score them, and the potential unreliability through inter-rater and intra-rater issues. Inter-rater reliability refers to consistency between two or more graders, and intra-rater reliability alludes inner consistency between one marking session and another.

Some recommendations to write these types of items are:

-Only one short, concise response should be allowed.

-Partial credit should be given to the various degrees of correctness.

ESSAY QUESTIONS

There are some advantages and disadvantages in essay questions. Some advantages include their usefulness to assess higher-order cognitive processes such as analysis, evaluation, summary and synthesis, and the autonomy the student has to decide the organization of the answer regarding the approach, ideas, contents and conclusions. Contrary to these, the disadvantages may be the required writing ability, they are time consuming, their potential reliability problems emerging from subjective scoring, and the scoring workload for the teacher.

The following are recommendations to write essay questions.

-The level of difficulty in essay questions should be similar.

-Essay questions should force students to use higher-order cognitive processes such as, evaluating, summarizing, alayzing, and synthesizing.

-Allow plenty linear space for students to write their essays.

-Specify the type and amount of information required in the essay.

-Asses content that is appropriate for the essay format.

-The specific scoring rubric should be shared wih the students before or during the exam to decreasse student´s anxiety.

According to Coombe et al, these are the ten things to remember about testing techniques.

"1. Design tests and assessmentt tasks based on blueprints or test specifications."

"2. Ensure the format remains the same within one section of the exam."

"3. Make sure the item format is correctly matched o the test purpose and course content."

"4. Include items of varying levels of difficulty." (Follow the 30/40/30 principle of students´ range abilities.)

"5. Start with an essay question first."

"6. Avoid ambiguous items, negatives, and especially double negatives."

"7. Avoid race, gender, and ethnic background bias."

"8. Prepare answer keys in advance of test administration."

"9. Employ items that test all levels of thinking."

"10. Give clear instructions."

CORRECTING TEST ITEMS

Correcting tests elaborated by other colleagues or by ourselves in previous years seems rather unusual in our daily work. In my years of teaching experience, the regular procedure requires handing in a copy of the test to our institution´s evaluation committee and file a copy in our personal test bank. Now we have a practical exercise of our work´s insight - or that from our colleagues- by revising, correcting or redesigning any old - or not so old- test. The procedure is very simple, since all we do is write observations on the margins of the pages. This gives us the opportunity to go back to that test, read the observations, and correct or redesign them so we can use them with a new group of students, if it is suitable.

The following is an example of a test with some observations.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX High School Total Points: 50
7th Grade I Mid-Term Exam I Trimester Points Obtained:

Teacher:XXXXXXXXXXXX - 2009 Score: ______
Time allowed: 80 minutes. 35%Obtained:
Parent´s Signature: _____________________________
Name: _________________________Date: ______________ Group: ______
General Instructions: Read everything carefully before you begin. Use blue or black pen[O.V.D.1] only. Avoid use of correction pen so you may present your complaints. Work individually and in silence.

I PART. Subjective Items.
A.MATCHING (6 points)

In COLUMN A, there are formal and informal types of greetings, leave takings and introductions. In COLUMN B, there are the names of these expressions. Relate the expressions to their names.
COLUMN A COLUMN B

See you later . . . . . . . . ( ) a. Formal greeting
What´s up ? . . . . . . . . . . . . .( ) b.Informal greeting

I´d like to introduce you to Mr. Clark . ( ) c. Formal introduction
Good morning. May I help you? . . . . . . ( ) d. Informal introduction
Hey, friends, this is Annie. . . . . . ( ) e.Formal leave taking
Good night, Mr.Brown. . . . . . . . ( ) f.Informal leave taking[O.V.D.2]

B. IDENTIFICATION[O.V.D.3] (13 points)
*Identify the correct personal pronoun. Write it on the space. (6points)

My name is John . ___________ am John.
Their names are Nancy and Maria. __________ are Nancy and Maria.
His name is Victor. ___________ is Victor.
Our names are Henry and Luis. ___________ are Henry and Luis.
Her name is Annie. ___________ is Annie.
Its name is Fifi. ________ is a dog.

*Identify[O.V.D.4] the correct possessive adjective. Write it on the space. (7 points)
1. We are Sara and Greg. _______ names are Sara nad Greg.
2. They are Jose and Kate. _______ names are Jose and Kate.
3. It is a cat. _______ name is Misingo.________ name is Misingo[O.V.D.5] .
4. She is Kenisha. ______ name is Kenisha.
5. He is Kevin. __________ name is Kevin.
6. You are Hellen. ______ name is Hellen.
7. I am Guadalupe. _______ name is Guadalupe.

C. SHORT ANSWER[O.V.D.6] .(12 POINTS)
*Find the words that complete the dialogue in the box, and fill in the blanks


BOX Hello-Bye- thanks -Pleased -about-study-How-friend –
meet – Henry – you-too



Ana: _______________.
Henry: Hi, Anna. ________ are you?
Ana: I´m O.K. How ______________ you?
Henry: I´m fine, ______________.
Ana: Henry, this is my ___________, Alonso.
Henry: Glad to ___________ you, Alonso.
Alonso: _______________ to meet you, too.
Ana: Where do _______ study?
Alonso: I ___________ at Liceo Nuevo. How about you?
Arturo: We both study at Liceo Nuevo, _______!
Alonso: Great! We will meet there soon.
Ana: See you later, _______________. Bye.
Arturo: ____________, Ana.

II PART SUBJECTIVE ITEMS.
Answer the questions with personal information.
(6 points)(1 point/correct answer, 1 point/correct structure)(8 points[O.V.D.7] )

1. What is your name?

2. Where do you live?

3. Where are you from?

4. How old are you?


Write an informal conversation. Use greetings,
leave takings and introductions. (12 points)(1 point/ correct structure, 1
point / correct expression)

*

*

*

*

[O.V.D.1]Ink


[O.V.D.2]Add
more options in column B.

[O.V.D.3]This
is not identification. It is a
completion exercise.

[O.V.D.4]This
is a copletion exercise, not identification.


[O.V.D.5]This
is repeated.

[O.V.D.6]This
is an identification exercise, not “short answers.”

[O.V.D.7]The
value of points is not clear. Is it worth 6 points or 8 points?

TESTING TECHNIQUES

Challenges may be found in elaborating test items and tasks because test items are the foundation of tests and other assessment instruments. Therefore, we will start by explaining a classification of test items according to the type of response from the test taker. There are selection items and supply items. Selection items are the items in which the student selects the correct answer from a number of presented options. These may be true/false, Multiple Choice, Matching, Numbering Sequence. On the other hand, in supply items, the test takers must supply or construct the correct answer. These items may be Cloze or Gap-Fill (No response provided), or Essay questions.

Test items may be also classified according to the scoring scoring procedure, into objective and subjective items. Thus, objective items are scored following an answer key, which does not requirethe marker (the person who corrects the tests) to have any knowledge of the subject being evaluated. These are "short answer-closed response items" (p.17) of recognition that are corrected easily and rapidly, reliable when there are plenty items, but difficult to properly construct. They can be used to test global and detailed understanding. Set in opposition, subjective items make imperative to have a marker knowledgeable of the subject being evaluated where much human judgment is required, although they are easy to construct. In addition, these items demand from the testers to produce open-ended responses and from the markers time and difficulty in checking.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

Multiple choice questions (MCQ) are conventionally used in textbooks and in English language proficiency tests at the recall and comprehension levels. Their basic structure is a stem and response. The stem is usually written as a question or an incomplete statement and one response, or key, among two or three other choices or distractors. The test taker identifies the correct or most appropriate response, called the key. When testing reading, vocabulary and grammar, there are four choices, but only three for listening, not to rely much on the student´s memory. The advantages of MCQ are: their reliability, their usefulness in various levels, the test taker´s abilities in writing are irrelevant to these, they can be scored by computer, and students everywhere are familiarized with them. Teir disadvantages are that they encourage guessing, they are time consuming to write, they do not test productive language skills, and frequently, teachers forget MCQs can be used to asses higher-order thinking skills.

There are common MCQ item violations that can be mended. These violations are:

-grammatical inconsistency

-extraneous cues or clues

-three for one split (Three distractors are parallel and one is not.)

-impure items (They test more than one concept.)

-apples and oranges (Two response options have no relation to the other two.)

-subsuming response options (The key and one of the distractors could both be correct.)

-unparallel options (Key and distractors are not parallel in length or in grammatical consistency.)

-gender bias in language

-sensitivity (negative emotional impact material should be avoided.)

-double answer or key (More than one response option is correct.)

-no answer (There is no key among the response options.)

-Giveaway distractors

True/False Format

True/false questions are a specialized form of the MCQ format, written as statements, with only two possible alternatives. The two response categories are: True/False, Yes/No, Correct/Incorrect, Right/Wrong or Fact/Opinion. Their advantages include being able to test large amounts of content, they require less time to be responded and more items can be incorporates into the tests, which increases reliability, and scoring is rapid, reliable, and accurate. Their disadvantages are the guessing factor of 50% and that you need to include ample number for them to be reliable.

Matching Format

Matching format is an extended form of MCQ. It brings forth the test taker´s ability to make connections among ideas, vocabulary, and structure. It is presented in two columns of information where items in the left-hand column are called premises or stems, and the items in the right-hand column are called options. Some advantaages of this format are that test takers have more distractors per item, and writing these are easier than writing MCQs.