At the end of this course, the student will be able to:
- evaluate the psychometric qualities of a language test;
- to construct and evaluate test tasks for a variety of language tests;
- to decide which kind of tests are suited for which contexts;demonstrate a thorough understanding of a variety of language test considerations, like authenticity, directness, reliability, test specifications, validity, and washback.
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Language tests are widely and abundantly in use to assess language proficiency skills (listening, speaking, writing, reading), language knowledge and language achievements, in many contexts (school, college, university context; workplace; in immigration, citizenship and asylum contexts). Successful language learning is essential in modern society, and test results are crucial in getting access to (further) professional and educational opportunities. This means that we need to understand how tests are being constructed, how we can construct tests ourselves, and how we can determine whether particular tests are reliable and valid. What do we test, how do we test it, is the test reliable, and is the test valid?
We will discuss practice, theory (including language theory!), statistics and ethics of (constructing) language tests, esp. in the field of second language acquisition. Finally, statistical analysis will be used to evaluate the psychometric properties of language tests.
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Basic knowledge of statistics, for example the course Methods in Language Research.
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