The Process of Developing Language Assessments

What is it about?

While there is considerable difference between high-stakes international language tests and classroom assessments of students' language ability, there is much insight from educational measurement that can be applied to classroom language assessment. The general process of developing all types of assessments, including tests, projects, and tasks, involves identifying the following: the purpose of the assessment, what aspect of ability or knowledge is to be assessed, what to include in the assessment (content) and what kind of assessment tasks are to be designed, how to organize the assessment, and how to administer it, including scoring and interpreting the results. Also part of developing assessments is follow-up analysis of the effectiveness of assessment tasks. Validity concerns for high-stakes international tests include the importance of impartial standardization in both test content and administration, whereas classroom assessment can involve interactions between teacher and students. Also, large-scale tests focus on assessment OF learning, while classroom assessment can be an integral part of learning (assessment FOR learning).

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Why is it important?

Language teachers can utilize insight from educational measurement in terms of identifying the purpose of the assessment (clarifying it for the students as well), developing an outline of the assessment's organization (providing transparency for students), checking the assessment with someone before giving it to students (piloting), paying attention to consistency in giving the assessment to students, and grading it. Finally, language teachers can analyze their assessments after grading them, to identify any ineffective items, problems with instructions, unclear grading criteria, etc., insights which can be used to improve the current assessment and also ones developed in the future.

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