Assessment Literacy: Building a Base for Better Teaching and Learning. V52, Nr.

The assessment is the way of evaluating a student, the process of testing

their assimilated knowledge. Assessmentt usually means to hand out to students
a prepared test or quiz. It doesnt matter if the test belongs to the textbook or
teacher, produced by our institution or a major testing organization. Teachers
should be assessment literate, if they want the assessment to be effective. The
objectives of the article: the way how to be assessment literate, terms which
make up the cornerstones of testing, how to plan our courses with assessment in
mind, how to make a test blueprint. Other techniques used for evaluating
students:performance tasks, portofolios, observation.Both termstestingand
assessment are aplied in measurement students learning.
The term
assessmentis more comprehensive. In comparison with tests which give only
grades to students,assessments assess both teachers and students. Besides that,
the assessment is intended to improve students learning, to motivate them and
make them learn. Furthermore assessment affects decisions related to
instruction, determines the extent to which instructional objectives are met and
provides information for administrating decisions. Moreover it is quite important
to connect students assessment to the learning and teaching process. Teachers
should combine items of the test to objectives. After using the test, teacher can
see the students feedback and how was the objectives made. After outcome the
teacher makes a conclusion , if he shoud use tools for his improvement and
students learning also. We can distinguish 7 key concepts:usefulness, reability,
validity, practicality,washback, authenticity, transparency. These elements are
considered the basis in helping a test to be well made, thus these concepts are
able to improve practices, develop assessment literacy. A test should contain the
purpose, the group and the specific language. Examples of tests:
TOEFL,IELTS,MET. Each of these tests has a specific purpose. TOEFL-using
and understanding English at the University and how test takers combine
listening, reading, speaking and writing.IELTS has an academic version(studing
English in a University) and general training version(skills in broad social
context), MET for students and adults. The assessments should also be
realiable. If the teacher gives to the students the same test twice, the results will
be the same. The test can be reliable but not valid. It is important of the validity
is the appropriateness for the context and the audience of the test. Factors which
have effect on validity: unclear question, test items that ask students to perform
at a skill level that is not part of the course objectives, test items that are poorly
written, test length that doesnt allow for adequate sampling or coverage of
content, complexity and subjectivity of scoring that may inaccurately rank some
students. For enssuring validity and reability is to create exam blueprints.
Practicality issues consist of cost of test development and maintenance, time
needed to administer and mark the test, ase of marking, availability of suitably

trained markers, and administration logistics. The teacher can allow students to
exchange their vocabulary quiz and mark them. It is more practical for students
to see others work. Washback contains the effects of testing on students,
teachers and the program. We distinguish positive and negative Washback.
Positive is than when testing is based on clear course, which know all the
students and teachers. Exams which require extensive preparation is negative.
To be washback positive the teacher should assure that the test is reflecting the
goals and objectives. Through feedback we also can bring a positive washback.
With the help of short quizzes which are graded by the students, they see where
they need to work and study more. Authenticity contain test which reflect real
world situations and in which provide motivation for students. Transparency
refers to the availability of information to students. The students should
understand what are the course objectives are, what will be tested, about the
marking and the format about the tests.if the format of the test is unknowf for
the student, it could affect its reliability. Through using transparency it reduce
students anxiety and allow the to perform further and better. In planning our
assesments there are some phases, which we should take into account. The first
phase is the initial planning stage. While planning an exam we should think
about assessment context and the purpose. The next step is to identify students
needs and develop course learning objectives. The teacher formulate the objects
and what he wants his students to know. It helps him how to assess if the
students have learned what the teacher wanted to learn.
Blueprint of
assessment is a good way for doing this. Blueprint is a tool used in order to
determine what is important for a student to know and ensure that the content
being taught is represented on the test. We begin to create a blueprint with the
learning objectives, how they will be tested and the total exam covering each
area. Example of a blueprint is represented in Figure 3. which includes the
following skills: reading, listening, writing, grammar, then the learning
objectives, questions , items and percentage. Feedback is a part of assessment.
Information from the test helps teacher to put the final mark of an exam.