There are many types of test with different purposes. When we teachers design and make tests, we normally set a goal or purpose of the tests.
For example, a proficiency test is given to the candidates in order to measure how suitable candidates will be for performing a certain task.
A progress test is effective to see how well the students have mastered the language in terms of structure, pattern and vocabulary that have just been taught.
An achievement test is something similar to a progress test in terms of checking the progress of the students. The main differences in between two tests are the way of testing and the stage we test. The achievement test is usually a formal examination, designed to cover a longer period of learning than progress test and given at the end of the school year or the course, while it is said that the best progress test is one which students do not recognize as a test but see as simply an enjoyable and meaningful activity.
Thus, we have different kinds of test and therefore, we teachers should be fully aware of its differences and be selective for which stage of the learning and what kind of test should be given to the learners.
In this research, I would like to study and examine about a diagnostic test. I can say that a diagnostic test is a kind of a progress test as well. I can check the students’ progress either by giving a progress test or a diagnostic test. But as I mentioned the above, each type of test has its own purpose.
Then, what the diagnostic test is? I will show you what it is in the following section.
First
of all, what is a diagnostic test?
It is a kind of tools that we teachers use to identify our students’ specific strength and weaknesses individually, just like a medical doctor diagnoses his / her patient. It generally consists of short but reliable subtests measuring different language skills or components of a single broad skill.
When
should it be given to the students?
As a teacher, I need to know how well the students have understood the language time to time and whether they can produce it or not. I can check it by giving the certain progress tests as activities at every stage of my lessons. By this way, I can check the students’ comprehension. But if I need to know the particular area of weaknesses and difficulties that students might have, then I use a diagnostic test.
Whenever teachers ask the students, “Did you understand?” students tend to answer, “Yes, I understood.” because it is the nature of students. So, better not ask such a meaningless question, we have various ways to check the students’ understandings such as concept checking during the presentation stage or giving them suitable tests like progress test or diagnostic test.
As an experienced Japanese teacher, I already have noticed that normally weaker students tend to show poor or no feedback, not good ones. And if I give weaker students some questions, they normally do not answer by themselves. I mean, the good students whisper the answer to weaker students. Thus, to check the students’ understanding by giving questions is not enough. We need to diagnose their weaknesses individually in order to design the remedial lesson.
Step
of diagnosis
First, in order to find out the particular area which students have problems and to know about the weaknesses, I design the test. For example, when I would like to know whether students understood the simper past tense, I would make 6 questions. 2 for changing affirmative to negative sentences, 2 for changing affirmative to interrogative sentences in order to check the students’ ability to use did and didn’t correctly. Then, I may give another 2 questions with words of yesterday and last month/week in order to check the students’ comprehension about the tense.
Then, I would go on the trial of the test. After the tests, I diagnose the result and would know the weaknesses of each student. And then, I will design the remedial lesson for them in order to cure and ease the students’ difficulties.
Who
need it?
Actually “both” need it. Teachers can realize the weakness of the students by the result, and do something to improve or cure it. Students can also realize their week points after the test. Sometimes students don’t realize / aware their own problems and weaknesses.
Further
notes
When I started studying about the diagnostic test, my understanding about this test was narrow and limited. I thought we had only one type of diagnostic test that was designed and given by the classroom teachers during the program or course years. Therefore, in my understanding, this test was for the classroom teachers who wanted to know the students’ language weaknesses and tried to do something for it in order to cure the problems.
However, one day I did the inter-net surging and came across another type of diagnostic test that is called “self diagnostic test.” The purpose of the test is the same, to find out the learners’ weaknesses of the language. But this self-diagnostic test is for the learners, not for the classroom teachers.
For example, suppose I want to take SAT but have no idea about SAT, I probably go for the trial examination first. To give myself a try, I would know how many sections this test has and also could know which section I did poorly by checking the answers.
Things which we can see through the self-diagnostic test
Please see the following test. This is the part of sample SAT self-diagnostic test. I just want to show how it looks like, so I cut some questions and didn’t put the full length of the test.
We can see that SAT is divided into 3 sections. The first section, the testee will be checked their vocabulary level in term of analogy. The second section is to check the testee’s grammar skills. And the last part is for reading comprehension. Also, the testee will know which section they are not good at, so the result of the diagnostic test will indicate that which section the testee needs more time to focus on. You can see the full content of the test at http://www.novapress.net/diagnostic/sat_test/index.html
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SAT
Diagnostic Test -Verbal- Questions Sample
1.
ANARCHY : GOVERNMENT :: 2. DISQUIETUDE : ANXIOUS ::
(A) confederation : state (A) magnitude : unabridged
(B) trepidation : courage (B) isolation : sequestered
(C) serenity : equanimity (C) cupidity : bellicose
(D) surfeit : food (D) embellishment : overstated
(E) computer : harddrive
~~
5.
Because of his success as a comedian, directors were loath to
consider him for ............... roles.
(A) supporting (B) leading (C) dramatic (D) comedic (E) musical
~~
Passage
for Question 9:
As Xenophanes recognized as long ago as the sixth century before Christ, whether or not God made man in His own image, it is certain that man makes gods in his. The gods of Greek mythology first appear in the writings of Homer and Hesiod, and, from the character and actions of these picturesque and, for the most part, friendly beings, we get some idea of the men who made them and brought them to Greece.
But ritual is more fundamental than mythology, and the study of Greek ritual during recent years has shown that, beneath the belief or skepticism with which the Olympians were regarded, lay an older magic, with traditional rites for the promotion of fertility by the celebration of the annual cycle of life and death, and the propitiation of unfriendly ghosts, gods or demons. Some such survivals were doubtless widespread, and, prolonged into classical times, probably made the substance of Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries. Against this dark and dangerous background arose Olympic mythology on the one hand and early philosophy and science on the other.
In classical times the need of a creed higher than the Olympian was felt, and Aeschylus, Sophocles and Plato finally evolved from the pleasant but crude polytheism the idea of a single, supreme and righteous Zeus. But the decay of Olympus led to a revival of old and the invasion of new magic cults among the people, while some philosophers were looking to a vision of the uniformity of nature under divine and universal law.
9. The main idea of the passage is that
(A) Olympic mythology evolved from ancient rituals and gave rise to early philosophy
(B) early moves toward viewing nature as ordered by divine and universal law coincided with monotheistic impulses and the disintegration of classical mythology
(C) early philosophy followed from classical mythology
(D) the practice of science, i.e., empiricism, preceded scientific theory
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If you missed questions 1-4: Your score indicates that you need to study Analogy questions.
If you missed questions 5-8: Your score indicates that you need to study Sentence Completion questions.
If you missed question 9 or 10: Your score indicates that you need to study Main Idea questions.
In this section, I would like to demonstrate how to make the test as well as how to diagnose the result.
I was quite lucky to have the opportunity to give my test to 15 students in the A. Tuenta’s class, English major in the 4th year undergraduate at SrinakarinWirot University.
Type
of test
There are 2 types of test I gave to the students. One is the Skimming test. Duration of time is 5 minutes. And the other test is the short essay, duration of time is 15 minutes.
What
is skimming and the purpose why I gave it a try?
Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a
text. Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than
normal reading. People often skim when they have lots of material
to read in a limited amount of time.
Since
I got university students as my testee and they must read large
volume of materials, I decided to give them the skimming test.
The following is the test I designed for the undergraduate students and also the tips how to diagnose.
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Skim this passage. You should finish in less than 60 seconds. Then, answer the questions.
All students of business affairs must be acquainted with the importance of organizations in everyday life. Perhaps even without realizing it, everyone is involved in and greatly affected by large and small organizations (1) from the cradle to the grave. We are born with the help of medical organizations, we go to schools which are part of educational organizations, and we find work within business organizations. In fact, every sphere of activity is influenced by some organizational cooperation somewhere, between certain groups of people in certain areas of life. It is not difficult, therefore, to realize that these different groups of people, working together to achieve their own different aims, are bound together by similar organizational relationships, however different their goals may appear to be.
(1) This is the period of time from ------- choose the best answer.
a) you enter the university till the graduation b) your birth till your death
c) you start to work till you achieve your goal d) elementary schools to finish high schools
(2) What is every sphere of activity influenced by?
(3) What does this author think that it is not difficult?
(4)
What types of organization people have been involved in since
they were born? Write at least three types of organization.
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* If students missed Q1, it means that they couldn’t guess the meaning of vocabulary from the content.
* If students missed Q2 and Q4, it means that they couldn’t find answers from the text.
* If students missed Q3, it means that they couldn’t identify the main idea quickly.
* If students didn’t write any words to Q4 and left it in blank, it means that they “read” the text instead of “skim” it.
Now, look at the result of the Skimming Test.
What
to check
The ability of: Skimming (know how to skim)
Finding answers from the content
Finding main idea from the content
Analyze the time … whether students could finish the test within 5 minutes.
Testee No. 01 ~ 12 = Under graduate Year 4
Testee No. 13 ~ 15 = MA in TEFL
Testee No. 16 = Native English Teacher
Testee Number
Item 1........... 2............ 3.............
4........... 5........... 6........... 7............ 8............ 9.............
10
1...... ○......... wrong..... ○.......... ○........
blank ..... ○........... ○............ ○......... ○........ ○
2...... ○......... ○........... ○.......... ○.........
○........... ○........... ○............ ○......... ○...........
wrong
3...... ○........ wrong.... wrong.... ○.......... ○........
wrong.... wrong.... wrong.... wrong..... wrong
4..... blank.... ○........ blank..... blank....
blank...... ○........... ○............ ○......... ○......... ○
Item 11........... 12........... 13............ 14..........
15........... 16
1........ ○.......... ○............ ○........
blank...... ○............ ○
2........ ○...... wrong.... wrong.... wrong..... ○............
○
3........ ○...... wrong.... wrong.... wrong.... wrong....
wrong
4........ ○...... ○......... wrong....... ○..........
○........... ○
○ = correct, wrong = wrong answer, blank = no answer written
Diagnosis
Testee No. 1, 4 : Those students may read the text, not skim.
Testee No. 2: Couldn't guess the meaning of vocab from the text. Skimming skill is fine.
Testee No. 3: They may read the text, not skim, therefore time was not enough.
Testee No. 5: Couldn't guess the meaning of vocab from the text. Also couldn't complete the
test within the required time.
Testee No. 6, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16 : The skimming skill is fine, but couldn't get the main idea that
related to Q3.
*
Testee No. 7 and 8 got exactly the same answers.
Student No. 10 and 12: The skimming skill is fair enough to find some answers, may be they read carefully and as a result time was up.
Next is the writing skills diagnostic test.
Writing
Skills Diagnosis
In this test I designed to assess students’ strengths and weaknesses in 2 writing skills as follows;
l Format - Introduction, Body and Conclusion
Does the essay start with introduction?
Does the essay have clear and unambiguous body?
Does the essay have conclusion?
l Organization - Classification, sequences in a logical order (or general/particular)
Does the essay have classification (first, second, last etc)?
Does the essay have the logical order?
Or expressed from general idea to specific, particular ones?
I set up the time for 15 minutes and required over 50 words. Therefore, students should think and form the idea as quickly as possible.
To choose the essay topic is also quite important. At first I had a plan to let them write about English learning. However, since this is not compulsory for them but just a voluntary work, I thought I should give them a topic that is related to their dairy life or dream about their future. I give only 15 minutes to complete the essay, it should be enjoyable and fun to write.
So, the topic is as follows. I saw the students’ faces when they knew the topic. They really enjoyed expressing their ideas freely and most of them finished the essay within 15 minutes.
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PART
2) SHORT ESSAY (15 minutes)
Write about your ideal wife / husband. You describe about your ideal partner first, then write the reasons why she / he should be your ideal wife / husband, to support your idea. You need to write at least 50 words.
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How well students wrote the essay is presented in the appendix with diagnosis.
In this report I have had the great opportunity to design the diagnostic tests, give them on the actual try with the university students and also diagnose the result.
Through the experience, I could learn and experience the following 3 main skills;
1. What to diagnose
2. When to diagnose
3. How to diagnose
1.
What to diagnose
Without specific purpose, I can’t design the tests. So, I realized that first I need to focus what area of language skills I must examine. Like first I set up the purpose and area of test for my experient.
2.
When to diagnose
Whenever it’s needed. I could diagnose the students I have never taught before, and still it worked. Of course the classroom teacher can give the diagnostic test whenever he or she feel their students have some difficulty and want to do some remedial lessons. Or learners can use this test to identify the area they need to focus. In this case, they can take the self-diagnostic test.
3.
How to diagnose
Look at both result and required I set up before the test. And see carefully which area or requirement students couldn’t complete. That is the weakness of the student.
At last, I have to express my deep appreciation to A. Tuenta to give them the opportunity to test her undergraduate students.
David Payne, Harris TESTING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (1969), Mograw-Hill College
Eleanor Er, TEXT ANALYSIS AND DIAGNOSTIC(1998), University press Macquare Univ
SAT self diagnostic test http://www.novapress.net/diagnostic/sat_test/index.html
Sample of the skimming test http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072331054/student_view0/chapter7/read.html
Skimming and Scanning http://www.42explore.com/skim.htm
COMPASS Diagnostic Background Information