Making tests more effective

Tests are an integral part of learning and checking the progress of the students. Though there are different approaches on how it is best to test the learners, the basic idea is the same – the progress should be measured. Most schools and universities apply the old school way of testing – grading. Each exercise has a value and by calculating the correct answers the students are awarded a grade.

Some institutions, however, have adopted a bit different approach in testing the knowledge of the learners — feedback. This doesn’t mean that they have completely gotten rid of the tests altogether, but this does mean they’re doing quite a few of them – mid semester and end of the year. The rest of the evaluation is based on constructive feedback given by the teachers and the administration. The advocates of this view claim that it gives better results, as students have a chance of learning what they should do to improve their learning rather than just being given a grade.

This, however, is a topic of longer discussion and we’ll come back to it in another article.

Today, we’ll be talking about ways to make tests more effective and result oriented. There are several factors to consider.

1.Why to test?

Before deciding to load the students with a test, we should ask ourselves a question why we need it. The reasons can be the following:

1. We want to check what the students have learnt in a particular period of time.
2. We want to find out what the learners don’t know.
3. We want to gather evidence to base our end of the year grade on.
4. We want to motivate the learners to do better.

Some of the reasons to give a test are more valid than the others, however, it is also very much based on the education institution you’re working for.

To me, the only reason to give a test is to see what the students’ pain points are and continue working on them. While some of you might argue that it is possible to figure this out during the classes as well, however, if your class is bigger than 5 people, it’s more challenging than it seems. Tests here, give you a chance to see a clearer picture of where the students are in their learning.

2.Keep it real

We all know the famous joke that schoolwork is normally easier than the home tasks. However, we definitely don’t want our students to feel like the tests are there to show them how little they know. It is quite the opposite.

The tests are to help them check how much they know. To achieve this successfully, we should make sure that the tests cover the material we’ve been working on in class for a period of time, not a more complicated thing. If the classes were focused on vocabulary and accuracy for instance, the tests should also be based on them, not on other language skills.

3.The test type

There are a lot of different ways of presenting tests, starting from multiple choice questions to gap fills and open ended tasks. To understand which type of task we want to assign in the test, we should first figure out the aim of the test.

1. If we want the learners to remember and recall a structure, multiple choice questions work the best.
2. If the target is for the learners to experiment with 2 different tenses, the gap fills are there to cover it.
3. And finally, if we aim to see how the students can manipulate with the knowledge they’ve received, we can resort to open ended questions and writing tasks to check the level of competency.

In any case, the test should be consistent. By no means we should vary the type of the exercises in one task. Instead, we should try to go from easy to difficult, so that the students have the time to build up to more sophisticated types of exercises.

4.Instructions

One of the most challenging things in the tests are unclear instructions. Sometimes we see instructions full of elaborate wording or long sentences. It always confuses the students. Instead, we should keep it as simple as possible and as short as possible. Here we’re not trying to check knowledge. It comes later in the exercise itself.

Another important thing to follow is to keep the instructions consistent. I’ve seen tests with similar tasks having completely different instructions like:

Fill in the gaps below.

Complete the missing words.

Put the correct words in the gaps.

Instead, it’s best to use the same wording for all types of similar exercises. It helps to keep the tests more consistent and professional.

5.Avoid pattern

One of the most common things in compiling tests, is that we tend to create patterns of right and wrong answers. It can look like this:

This test is subject to be named as invalid, as patterns negate test objectivity.

To avoid this, it’s best to co-edit tests as a pair of different eyes might help to avoid making unnecessary mistakes.

6.Timing

Last but not the least, we should pay attention to how much time the test will take the students to complete. You don’t want to go overboard and have them write a regular practice test during a whole session, as that time can be used more productively. Instead, I always try to keep the tests up to 30 mins (depending on the test type — pop quiz, practice tests,etc.). It is also easy on the learners as they don’t feel the full class pressure of a TEST DAY.

All in all, the most basic things you can do to make practice tests more efficient are to clarify the reasons for the test and the things you want to be tested. If you start from here, the structure of the test will emerge. Also, it’s a good idea to consult your colleagues and recognized sources (Oxford, Cambridge tests) especially if you’re a newbie in the sphere.