Relationship between Testing and Teaching

Traditionally, there has always been some kind of test at the end of a course. This is often almost a ritual. This type of testing, where a final performance is evaluated, is termed

·         Summative testing. Decisions may be made on the basis of the results of such tests that effect further study or educational progress. The focus is backward looking or retrospective over items previously learnt [or taught].

·         Formative assessment feeds into the teaching or learning program, providing information about the learning process, enabling teachers to modify programs and learners to modify strategies. Results are perceived as the starting point for action rather than an end product, the opening of a new stage [or cycle] in the learning process rather than the closure of a previous stage. Formative tests may be used to establish what has been learnt already and what needs to be learnt and how best to bridge the gap between the two.

·         Norm Referenced Versus Criterion Referenced Testing

Traditionally, language has been tested using norm-referenced techniques. Learners are placed on some sort of scale and compared with one another, with the expectation that most of the scores will bunch in the middle, with relatively few at the top or bottom of the range [and increasingly fewer towards the extremes of the range].

The emphasis here is moving from what the candidate knows [or doesn't know] to what the candidate can do [or cannot do].

Teaching and testing at the minimum, essential level is directed toward instruction that modifies student behavior to conform to a predetermined minimal level of performance. Performance outcomes are specific and call for simple responses. As previously stated, simple tasks make it easy to have a direct relationship between the objective, the instructional process, and the testing procedure. See Figure 5. For a diagram of evaluating an essential performance objective.

This model is very useful for teaching and testing simple skills where the intention is to have all students perform the tasks alike at a specified acceptable minimum level. Standards of minimal performance are easy to identify because complete mastery or near complete mastery is expected. For example, a student might be expected to correctly identify heart sounds with 90 percent accuracy.

Teaching and testing at the higher developmental level encourages all students to make as much progress as possible toward a predetermined goal. The instructional objectives are often more general than those identifying a simple mastery of basic skills. Therefore, each general objective represents a category of responses. Objectives provide guidance for the students and the instructor without dictating specific types of instructional strategies or learning activities. Since these general objectives represent a whole class of responses, these objectives require the instructor to identify a sample of specific learning outcomes as described in the previous section. Teaching at the developmental level should be directed toward the general instructional goal and the total category of responses that it represents. The list of specific learning objectives provides a roadmap for test construction and evidence that general progress has been made. See Figure 6. For another example of this map from objective to outcome.

When measuring developmental learning, it is often difficult to define maximum individual achievement; therefore it is typical to describe performance in relative terms. This may be where an individual's performance falls within a particular group of students. In all cases, the test score indicates a relative level of achievement.