It
was my second week of my seventh semester. It was Friday, and I had language
assessment class at 07.30. There‘s one strict rule that must be obeyed: come on
time, and I’d just arrived at 07.45 which made me successfully late. The sad
thing is I was assumed absent, but I still had a good reason to enter the
class: that lesson.
When
I entered the class, my teacher was had just instructed his students to make a
schedule which later on will be used for pairing the student with same free
time to discuss about something related to the lesson. Of course, it’s not
real, it was like a simulation, but I thought the way my teacher divided a
group is unique, and perhaps I should try to emulate his way if one day I were
a lecturer.
After
every student got partner to discuss, the very first thing to do was read each
partner’s journal, and commented each other by giving suggestions. After
finishing comment one another’s journal, then my teacher discussed what has
learned in the previous week.
If
in the first meeting I learned about the concept of language assessment and
kinds of assessment, then second meeting I learned about test qualities.
There’s a term given to those qualities called validity. What I understand
about validity is it reflects the quality of test which shows whether the test
is suitable with the lessons have been taught the whole time or not. In short,
the test must examine what must be examined. Furthermore, the test must reflect
one’s real ability or proficiency has achieved.
My
teacher told the whole class that validity consists of 3C: construct, content,
and criterion. The first one, construct validity measures hidden knowledge and
ability, for example: reading skill. We are able to know singer’s skill by
hearing their voice, and then we know whether their voice is bad or good.
However, we cannot directly know the extent of reading skill of person because
it tends to be invisible.
The
second, content validity, a test quality which guarantees that a test is
suitable with the content. It means that content validity of certain test can
be called good if the test examines what’s should be examined. In schooling
context, the test must be suitable with curriculum, syllabus, or lessons in
class room meanwhile outside schooling context is vice versa. TOEFL, IELTS, and
painting competition are example of outside schooling context of content
validity.
The
third which is the last, there is criterion-related validity, in accordance to
its name, it measures a degree of person according to a criteria. A student can
be given ‘A’ by his professor due to particular standards, such as: ‘A’ is
given when the result is best of the best, ‘B’ means ‘Good’, ‘C’ means
‘enough’, and so on. This also applied to competition which commonly measure
the participant’s skills according to certain criteria. Criterion-related
validity consists of concurrent validity. The quality is seen by comparing some
of the test results of student. For example: a student got an ‘A’ in every quiz
and mid test, but then unexpectedly got ‘C’ in final test. The question is
“what is the cause of ‘C’?” is it caused by the student itself, or the test
which has bad quality, thus the student fails to get the test? There is also
predictive validity which can predict a person’s future performance. It
commonly used in IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, or any similar test to know the degree of
person’s language proficiency. For example: Score 6 in IELTS is considered as a
standard to a person to study abroad, so if I get 7 of IELTS score, then I know that I have adequate
ability to continue my study in UK.
So, that’s all I got in language
assessment that day, it was important to know quality of test because a good
test will reflect a good result. Otherwise, bad test can affect the result of
the test, and it can be predicted that the result also will be bad.
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