thom kiddle: item development, the cefr and the perils of cinderella testing
TRANSCRIPT
Eaquals International Conference, 16 – 18 April 2015
Item development, the CEFR, and the perils of Cinderella testing
Thom Kiddle
Director
NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education)
www.eaquals.org
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• Constructs and cognition
• Development of an item type • The role of the CEFR • Cinderella testing
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Constructs and cognition “It is important to emphasise that constructs are not psychologically real entities that exist in our heads. Rather, they are abstractions that we define for a specific assessment purpose.” (Alderson, 2000: 118)
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Constructs and cognition “Constructs come from a theory of reading, and they are realised through the texts we select, the tasks we require readers to perform, the understandings they exhibit and the inferences we make from those understandings, typically as reflected in scores.” (Alderson, 2000: 117)
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• Understanding text structure in semi-authentic reading passages (EFL exam in European context)
Original item type:
Development of an item type
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• Suggested variation on item type
Intra-text-banked gap-fill
flowerpot
earth
press
sunny
garden
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Potential/proposed advantages • Principled selection of lexical and
grammatical elements contributing to text structure / cohesion cf. M/C cloze vs. open cloze
Development of an item type
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Potential/proposed advantages • Principled selection of lexical and
grammatical elements contributing to text structure cf. M/C cloze vs. open cloze
• Banking within text allows deduction of meaning of unfamiliar lexis in context; even of target items
• Reflects and highlights role of repetition in text cohesion
• Potential diagnostic value and positive washback
• Test economy cf. Summary items
Development of an item type
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Quantitative and qualitative analysis • Encouraging facility and discrimination
indices (CTT)
Development of an item type
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48.62
58.26
58.72
0.62
0.59
0.65
Item facility and discrimination values
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Quantitative and qualitative analysis • Encouraging facility and discrimination
indices (CTT) • Repeated verbal protocol analyses
reveal differences in approach (and potential item unfamiliarity issues)
Development of an item type
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• Stronger students* treat as open cloze: predict missing word, then scan text for confirmation
• Weaker students* read whole passage for general comprehension, then attempt gaps in order.
• Strongest students* ignore instructions and fill in own words!
Verbal protocol analyses
* On external proficiency measure, not on item or test.
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Quantitative and qualitative analysis • Encouraging facility and discrimination
indices (CTT) • Repeated verbal protocol analyses
reveal differences in approach (and potential item unfamiliarity issues)
• Item/text interaction analyses • Text difficulty analysis
Development of an item type
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Text difficulty
• Text readability measures (e.g. www.readable.com)
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Text difficulty
• Text readability measures (e.g. www.readable.com)
• Lexical frequency measures (e.g. Vocabprofiler at www.lextutor.ca)
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Text difficulty
• Text readability measures (e.g. www.readable.com)
• Lexical frequency measures (e.g. Vocabprofiler at www.lextutor.ca)
• CEFR calculator tool (www.cefestim.ecml.at)
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The role of the CEFR
• Desire for exams and tests to be aligned to CEFR
• Implications for standard-setting (IDM / Bookmark / Basket / Modified Angoff)
• Do CEFR descriptive scales address processes involved in achieving outcomes (the horizontal dimension)? Are these processes language specific?
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The CEFR: assessing language processing
Council of Europe (2001: 91-2)
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• Desire for exams and tests to be aligned to CEFR
• Implications for standard-setting on item / task difficulty (IDM / Bookmark / Basket / Modified Angoff)
• Do CEFR descriptive scales address processes involved in achieving outcomes (the horizontal dimension)? Are these processes language specific?
• What are the implications for scale creation of
item / task types targeting processes which may emerge at a specific level of proficiency (the vertical dimension)?
The role of the CEFR
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Reading: Can read straightforward factual texts on subjects
related to his/her field and interest with a satisfactory level of
comprehension.
Reading: Can understand in detail lengthy, complex texts,
whether or not they relate to his/her own area of speciality.
The CEFR: the vertical dimension
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… it may be an essential part of the construct to recognise that certain reading processes emerge and are mastered at certain levels of proficiency, and may not be pan-linguistic across (European) languages.
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Cinderella testing
• What is happening in this still from an animated fairy tale?
• The worst test ever?
• Potential pitfall of desire for CEFR alignment to dictate foci of item types to only those reflected in CEFR illustrative scales?