What is it about?
Tasks in different test forms of the same test should be similar in difficulty. If language testing programs could not give such evidence, they may be criticized for potential unfairness. However, this issue had only been discussed in very few studies. This study tries to find out how parallel the writing tasks with pictures of three alternate tests are.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Our findings generally support the equivalence of the writing tasks. They are close in difficulty measures, and the differences among them are not significant. However, we also find that task difficulty is affected by variables related to performance conditions. Through the current research findings, we aim to provide insights into how fairness for test takers can be ensured in the development of writing tasks with pictures and to send an important message to those involved in producing equivalent test forms.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a pleasant experience. It has participating raters some of whom are my colleagues and the others are new friends from Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. They were very collaborative and helpful. The article aroused our repeated talks in relation to how to assess writing which often led to better understanding of the questions I was wrestling with. I hope this article makes people think more about task equivalence as it concerns some of the important issues which yet remain to be under researched.
Jiuliang Li
Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Establishing Comparability Across Writing Tasks With Picture Prompts of Three Alternate Tests, Language Assessment Quarterly, December 2017, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/15434303.2017.1405422.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
