TESL 100 - Unit 8 (Assessment) - "Practice test on video lecture"

The structure of this test is interesting. The validity, reliability, and practicality of this test and these objectives seems to generally be positive, however there are some aspects of this test that could be changed to be more useful to the learners involved in the class.

Overall, much of the information present in the test seems to be validly related to the subject matter that is described in the objectives (Brown & Lee, 2015,p. 492-493).  However, there do seem to be some aspects of this test that, although related to the objectives and course, are more obscurely related to the learner’s knowledge and has the possibility of creating confusion and frustration in the learner.  This frustration is similar to what I experienced as a high school math student. We learned a concept in our math class but when it came to the test it was assessed in a way that was completely different than anything we had experienced in class and as a result I was very frustrated with the question and felt like I could not succeed.  In my own classroom, I attempt to not only teach the process or opportunities in which the concept can be used but also a more generalized version of the information to create flexibility in the learner’s use of it.

Reliability of the assessment is also extremely important and this test seems to be reliable in terms of the score (Brown & Lee, 2015,p. 491-492).  Many of the questions only have one possible answer and thus provide high reliability. However, some of the questions, particularly in tasks 3 and 4, are more open-ended and thus are more difficult to grade in a manner that has high reliability.  From my experience, providing a rubric for the learners that is directly based on the rubric used by the instructor to grade will allow for more reliability.

Finally, the practicality both of the information shared and the assessment used is immensely important to the learners (Brown & Lee, 2015,p. 491).  This test is a criterion-based test that focuses on some of the learning objectives. In particular, tasks 2 and 3 are focused most directly on the objectives of the class.  Task 1 seemingly does not relate as much to the class objectives. This task focuses more specifically on grammar which can be important but does not fit directly with the planned objectives.

Overall, this test seems to meet many of the requirements of validity, reliability, and practicality.  There are both strengths and weaknesses to this test that I think are worth discussing. Repetition is an important strength of this test.  The learners are given 2 chances to listen to the video prior to the test which is useful for the learners. However, it may be beneficial for the learners to have a chance to listen to the video the first time on their own so they are able to pause and repeat certain sections.  In my experience, attempting to write and take notes during a video can be extremely difficult even for fluent speakers of a language as handwriting notes can be a slow process. A second weakness I see with this test is the weight placed upon grammar. Task 1 emphasizes grammar yet the class objectives do not list it as an aspect of the class nor is it necessary for listeners to understand grammatical concepts to understand a listening activity.  Grammar is important and discussing the grammatical concept in the learners own words can be helpful but is not necessary for a test of listening ability. Finally, I think a beneficial next step in this course would be for the instructor to pick up the learners’ notes after the class to better understand the ways in which the learners are taking notes.

A video entitled “What does a good assessment look like in the eyes of a student?” struck me as an important point for this discussion. This video outlines important ideas that we know about how assessments should look as well as their presence in the classroom. I find it important that Dr. Pellegrino brings up the idea that an assessment should look like any other classroom activity. To view the video, you can find it at the following link : What does a good assessment look like in the eyes of a student?

Brown, H. & Lee, H. (2015) Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (Fourth Edition). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education

Pellegrino, J. [Real Learning for Real Life]. (2015, November 30). What does a good assessment look like in the eyes of a student? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaeUBxqI1M