Promising endeavors have recently been made at operationalizing the theoretical framework in order to allow for the design and implementation of LAL initiatives.
Future directions point at a move towards situated differential rather than unified LAL conceptualization in the form of language assessment literacies. Skip to main content. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. Advertisement Hide. Authors Authors and affiliations Ofra Inbar-Lourie. Reference work entry First Online: 16 May Keywords Language assessment literacy Assessment literacy Language assessment culture Assessment for learning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Standards for teacher competence in educational assessment of students. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 9 4 , 30— Google Scholar. Barni, M. Spolsky, O. Tannenbaum Eds. New York: Routledge. Black, P. Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappa , 1— Accessed 10 June Brindley, G.
Language assessment and professional development. Elder, A. Brown, E. Grove, K. Hill, N. Iwashita, T. Lumley, T. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, J. Language testing courses: What are they in ? Language Testing, 25 3 , — CrossRef Google Scholar. Brunfaut, T. Lancaster University. And you must remember to count contracted words as their full forms. Is this really how we want to spend our precious time with our students?
Can you see why? The solution is at the end of this blog. But before we get too critical, we need to appreciate that balancing all these elements is always an exercise in compromise, which brings us nicely to the final concept in VRAIP…. There is always a trade-off between validity, reliability, authenticity and impact. Want a really short placement test?
Want a digitally-delivered proficiency test? His interests include learner corpora, learning analytics, and adaptive technology. Bringing teachers and other ELT professionals top quality resources, tools, hints and tips, news, ideas, insights and discussions to help further their ELT career.
Please help me to solve one problem which is i know many words of english vocab but not able to use them in day to day talking. I get confused in choosing to select a right word to pace in my sentence while speaking. I would be highly obliged if you please help me out.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Foundations characterize guidelines related to assessment purposes, designs, and preparation. Use comprises guidelines in terms of examining student work, providing instructional feedback, and reporting. Quality includes guidelines on fairness, diversity, bias, and reflection. Collectively, these Standards began to address critiques raised in relation to the Standards within a more contemporary conception of assessment literacy, which recognizes that teachers make assessment decisions based on an interplay of technical knowledge and skills as well as social and contextual elements.
The focus of previous conceptions of assessment literacy was on what teachers need to know and be able to do, as an individual characteristic, with respect to assessment knowledge and skill. Contemporary conceptions of assessment literacy recognize the importance and role of context in the capacity to develop and enact assessment knowledge and skills. Contemporary views of assessment literacy view it as a negotiated professional aspect of teachers' identities where teachers integrate their knowledge of assessment with their knowledge of pedagogy, content, and learning context Adie, ; Scarino, ; Cowie et al.
Willis et al. Assessment literacy is a dynamic context-dependent social practice that involves teachers articulating and negotiating classroom and cultural knowledges with one another and with learners, in the initiation, development and practice of assessment to achieve the learning goals of students. At the heart of this view of assessment is recognizing that the practice of assessment is shaped by multiple factors including teacher background, experience, professional learning, classroom context, student interactions and behaviors, curriculum, and class diversity Looney et al.
More precisely, these socio-cultural factors shape how teachers negotiate various domains of assessment practice. Following previous research DeLuca et al. Thus, what is evident from current conceptions of assessment literacy is that the practice of assessment is not a simple one; rather, it appears that multiple socio-cultural factors influence teachers' negotiation of various assessment domains to create differential practices of assessment based on context and scenario.
Drawing on a more contemporary view of assessment literacy, several scholars have taken up the challenge of researching teachers' priorities, knowledge, and approaches to assessment e. The majority of this research has involved understanding how teachers primarily use assessments—the purposes of their assessment practices—as related to assessment policies, theories, and dominant assessment cultures within school systems. For example, Wolf et al.
Within a testing culture, teachers are not just focused on instrument construction and application but also on the production and use of relative rankings of students. In contrast, within an assessment culture, teachers focus on the relationship between instruction and learning and places value on the long-term development of the student. Teacher identification with either a testing or assessment culture has been shown to have a direct impact upon their perceptions of intelligence, the relationship between teacher and learner, and the purpose of assessment instruments Wolf et al.
Similarly, in a landmark article, Shepard mapped assessment orientations and practices to dominant historical paradigms within educational systems. Specifically, she argued that traditional paradigms of social efficiency curricula, behaviorist learning theory, and scientific measurement favor a summative testing approach to assessment, whereas a social constructivist paradigm makes provisions for a formative assessment orientation.
More recently, Brown and his later work with colleagues e. Teachers who hold the conception that assessment improves teaching and learning would also be expected to believe that formative assessments produced valid and reliable information of student performance to support data-based instruction.
Assessment as a means to hold schools accountable for student performance requires teachers to either emphasize the reporting of instructional quality within a school or changes in the quality of instruction over reporting periods. The school accountability purpose of assessment has become increasingly popular, particularly in the United States, over the past few decades with the shift in education toward a standards-based, accountability framework Brown, ; Stobart, ; Popham, Similarly, student accountability, views the primary purpose of assessment to hold students accountable for their learning toward explicit learning targets.
Brown's final conception of assessment recognizes orientations that devalue assessment as legitimate practices in classrooms. A teacher who supports this conception would most likely see assessment as a force of external accountability, disconnected from the relationship between teacher and student within the classroom Brown, In a later study, Brown and Remesal examined differences in the conceptions of assessments held by prospective and practicing teachers, constructing a three-conception model to explain teachers' orientations to assessment: a assessment improves, b assessment is negative, and c assessment shows the quality of schools and students.
Interestingly, prospective teachers relied more heavily upon assessment instruments of unknown validity and reliability i. Postareff et al. A relationship between a reproductive conception of assessment and traditional assessment practices as well as a transformational conception of assessment and alternative assessment practices was also identified in this study. Within these various conceptions of assessment, teachers enact diverse assessment practices within their classrooms.
In a recent study, Alm and Colnerud examined teachers grading practices, noting wide variability in how grades were constructed due to teacher's approaches to classroom assessment. For example, the way teachers developed assessments varied based on whether they used norm- or criterion-referenced grading, whether they added personal rules onto the grading policy, and whether they incorporated data from national examination into final grades.
These factors, along teachers' beliefs of what constituted undependable data on student performance and how non-performance factors could be used to adjust grades, resulted in teachers enacting grading systems in fundamentally different ways. In our own work, we have found that teachers hold significantly different approaches to assessment when considered across teaching division DeLuca et al.
Much of the research into teachers enacted assessment practices has used a qualitative methodology involving observations and interviews, without the opportunity to consider how teachers would responds to similar and common assessment scenarios. In order to provide additional evidence on the differential and situated nature of assessment literacy, we invited teachers to respond to a survey that presented teachers with five common classroom assessment scenarios.
By survey responses, we aimed to better understand teachers' various approaches to classroom assessment with specific consideration for differences between elementary and secondary teachers. Teachers who had completed their initial teacher education program at three Ontario-based universities were recruited for this study via alumni lists i. All teachers were certified and at a similar stage of their teaching career i. All recent graduates at these institutions were sent an email invitation with link to complete the scenario-based survey and provided consent prior to completing the survey following approved research ethics protocols.
The surveys that were accessed but not completed did not contain enough complete responses i. Of the respondents i. In total, respondents represented the secondary teaching division and represented the elementary division. The ACAI was previously developed based on an analysis of 15 contemporary assessment standards i. From this analysis, we developed a set of themes to demarcate the construct of assessment literacy, and which aligned with the most recently published Classroom Assessment Standards from the Joint Committee for Standards on Educational Evaluation Each dimension had associated with it a set of three priority areas.
For example, the three priorities associated with the assessment literacy theme of assessment purpose were: assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning.
See Table 1 for complete list of assessment literacy domains with definitions of associated priority areas. Scenario-based items were created for the ACAI that addressed the four assessment literacy domains.
An expert-panel method was used to ensure the construct validity of the instrument followed by a pilot testing process see DeLuca et al. In total, 20 North American educational assessment experts followed an alignment methodology Webb, , , ; DeLuca and Bellara, to provide feedback on the scenario items. Based on expert feedback the scenarios were revised and amended until all items met the validation criteria i. After the alignment process, the ACAI scenarios were pilot tested with practicing teachers.
The ACAI version used in this study included 20 items equally distributed across five classroom assessment scenarios with a second part that included a short collection of demographic data. Teachers were administered an online survey that included five assessment scenarios and demographic questions. Each dimension maintained three approach options that related to the recently published Joint Committee Classroom Assessment Standards Klinger et al. In completing the survey, teachers were asked to consider their own teaching context when responding to each scenario i.
Descriptive statistics mean, standard deviation were calculated for responses to each action. A Bonferroni correction was employed, with an adjusted alpha value of 0.
Cohen's d was calculated as a measure of effect size. As our interest in this paper was to consider how teachers respond consistently and differently to the same assessment scenario, results were analyzed by scenario and by participant demographic background to determine contextual and situational differences between teachers and their approaches to assessment.
In analyzing teachers' responses, we provide overall response patterns by scenario, recognizing most likely and least likely responses in relation to various assessment approaches see Table 1.
Results are presented with consideration for both descriptive trends and significant results by teaching division i. Complete results are presented in Appendices A — E with the text highlighting priority areas and differences between groups by scenario.
This chapter focuses on key ideas for understanding literacy assessment to assist with educational decisions. Included is an overview of different literacy assessments, along with common assessment procedures used in schools and applications of assessment practices to support effective teaching.
Readers of the chapter will gain an understanding of different types of assessments, how assessment techniques are used in schools, and how assessment results can inform teaching. But high-stakes tests are actually just a fraction of assessment procedures used in schools, and many other assessments are as important in influencing instructional decisions.
This chapter discusses a wide scope of literacy assessments commonly used in kindergarten through twelfth grade classrooms, along with ways to use results to make educational decisions. Literacy has traditionally been regarded as having to do with the ability to read and write.
This multidimensional definition of literacy requires educators and policy makers to conceptualize literacy in complex ways. Controversies arise when the richness of literacy is overly simplified by assessments that are not multidimensional or authentic, such as the overuse of multiple-choice questions.
Educators may find the lack of authenticity of these assessments frustrating when results do not appear to represent what their students know and can do. On the other hand, more authentic assessment methods, such as observing students who are deliberating the meaning of texts during group discussions, do not precisely measure literacy skills, which can limit the kinds of decisions that can be made.
Even though the assessment of literacy using multiple choice items versus more authentic procedures seems like opposites, they do have an important feature in common: they both can provide answers to educational questions. Whether one approach is more valuable than the other, or whether both are needed, depends entirely on the kind of questions being asked. This chapter will help you learn more about how to make decisions about using literacy assessments and how to use them to improve teaching and learning.
To understand the purposes of different types of literacy assessment, it is helpful to categorize them based on their purposes.
It should be noted that there is much more research on the assessment of reading compared to assessment of other literacy skills, making examples in the chapter somewhat weighted toward reading assessments.
Examples of assessments not limited to reading have also been included, where appropriate, as a reminder that literacy includes reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and performing, consistent with the definition of literacy provided in Chapter 1 of this textbook. One way to categorize literacy assessments is whether they are formal or informal.
Formal literacy assessments usually involve the use of some kind of standardized procedures that require administering and scoring the assessment in the same way for all students.
An example of formal assessments is state tests, which evaluate proficiency in one or more literacy domains, such as reading, writing, and listening. During the administration of state tests, students are all given the same test at their given grade levels, teachers read the same directions in the same way to all students, the students are given the same amount of time to complete the test unless the student received test accommodations due to a disability , and the tests are scored and reported using the same procedures.
Each state specifies standards students should meet at each grade level, and state test scores reflect how well students achieved in relation to these standards. Another example of a criterion-referenced score is the score achieved on a permit test to drive a car. A predetermined cut score is used to decide who is ready to get behind the wheel of a car, and it is possible for all test takers to meet the criterion e. Criterion-referenced test scores are contrasted with normatively referenced i.
How a student does depends on how other students score who take the test, so there is no criterion score to meet or exceed. To score high, all a student has to do is do better than most everyone else. Informal literacy assessments are more flexible than formal assessments because they can be adjusted according to the student being assessed or a particular assessment context.
Teachers make decisions regarding with whom informal assessments are used, how the assessments are done, and how to interpret findings.
Informal literacy assessments can easily incorporate all areas of literacy such as speaking, listening, viewing, and performing rather than focusing more exclusively on reading and writing. Teachers engage in a multitude of informal assessments each time they interact with their students. Asking students to write down something they learned during an English language arts ELA class or something they are confused about is a form of informal assessment.
Reading inventories require students to read word lists, passages, and answer questions, and although there are specific directions for how to administer and score them, they offer flexibility in observing how students engage in literacy tasks.
Reading inventories are often used to record observations of reading behaviors rather than to simply measure reading achievement. Another useful way to categorize literacy assessments is whether they are formative or summative. An example of formative literacy assessment might involve a classroom teacher checking how many letters and sounds her students know as she plans decoding lessons.
Students knowing only a few letter sounds could be given texts that do not include letters and words they cannot decode to prevent them from guessing at words. Students who know most of their letter sounds could be given texts that contain more letters and letter combinations that they can practice sounding out e. In this example, using a formative letter-sound assessment helped the teacher to select what to teach rather than simply evaluate what the student knows.
State tests fall under the category of summative assessments because they are generally given to see which students have met a critical level of proficiency, as defined by standards adopted by a particular state.
Unit tests are also summative when they sum up how students did in meeting particular literacy objectives by using their knowledge related to reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and performing. A spelling test can be both formative and summative. Another way to categorize assessments is whether they are used for screening or diagnostic purposes. Screenings are typically quick and given to all members of a population e.
See Table 1 for examples of commonly used universal literacy screeners, along with links to information about their use. Literacy screenings require young children to complete one-minute tasks such as naming sounds they hear in spoken words e.
For these assessments, the correct number of sounds, letters, or words is recorded and compared to a research-established cut point i. If a student scores below the benchmark, it indicates that the task was too difficult, and detection of this difficulty can signal a need for intervention to prevent future academic problems.
Intervention typically involves more intensive ways of teaching, such as extra instruction delivered to small groups of students. Teachers can select the letters, words, and passages to be included on these individualized assessments. The purposes of universal literacy screenings can be contrasted with those of diagnostic literacy assessments. Unlike literacy screeners, diagnostic tests are generally not administered to all students but are reserved for students whose learning needs continue to be unmet, despite their receiving intensive intervention.
Diagnostic literacy assessments typically involve the use of standardized tests administered individually to students by highly trained educational specialists, such as reading teachers, special educators, speech and language pathologists, and school psychologists.
Diagnostic literacy assessments include subtests focusing on specific components of literacy, such as word recognition, decoding, reading comprehension, and both spoken and written language.
Results from diagnostic assessments may be used formatively to help plan more targeted interventions for students who do not appear to be responding adequately, or results can be combined with those from other assessments to determine whether students may have an educational disability requiring special education services. The WIAT-III is typically used to assess the achievement of students experiencing academic difficulties who have not responded to research-based interventions.
The WIAT-III includes reading, math, and language items administered according to the age of the student and his or her current skill level.
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