In the previous section, one of the fundamental concepts in language testing, namely test function,was briefly discussed. In this section, another fundamental concept, the form of language tests, will be clarified. The form of a test refers to its physical appearance, which depends on the form of the items comprising the test. Since an item is the unit of a test,an explanation of the concept of an”item” seems necerssary.
There is some confusion regarding the form of the tests because different terminologies are used to refer to the same forms. Furthemore, scholars have looked at the issue from different perspectives. Some of them have classified tests into subjective or objective types some others into supply or selection types; and still others into essay or multiple-choice types of items. Of course, there are some similarities and differences across classifications and each categorization has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, in order to clarify the issue, first thec oncept of an item and its components will be presented; then each classification will be critically examined; and finally a more comprehensive classification will be offered.
An Item and Its Components
The purpose of an item is to elicit information. Each item has two parts: one, called the stem, is for
eliciting information from the examinee; and the
other, called the response, is for the examinee to
respond to the stem.)The combination of the stem
and the response is usually called “an item type”. For
example, the following item is referred to as a
“multiple-choice” item because it has more than one
choice for the correct response: In this type of item,
each response ia called an “alternative”, a “choice”,
or an “option”. One of them is the correct response.
The others, which are wrong or unacceptable, are
referred to’as “distractors”.
(Stem) He to school tomorrow.
choices Options, Alternatives, Distractors)
a. will go (correct response
b. would go
c. had to go
d. would be going
e. would have gone
From this point on, then, the focus will be on the
form of the items rather than of the tests, keeping in
mind that items constitute tests. The next part is
devoted to the discussion of the test categories in
terms of their forms.
Subjective or Objective Type Items
Subjectivity or objectivity refers to the way a test
item is scored. An objective item is the one for which
experts will give the same score. But, for a subjective
item, there may not be such an agreement among the
experts. Consider the following three examples:
Dictation is a kind of test. True False These
How many hours are there in a day?
There are…….
3.
a. 10
c. 12
hours in a day.
b. 20
d. 24
There are 12 hours in a day. True False
These items, though different in form, are allobj
ective because the responses are such that the scorers
would agree on the correct response and thus give the
same score to a given item, on the other hand,
the following items are subjective
What is the use of dictation in the classroom?
Dictation is believed to be a …….. test.
a. good b. useless
c. practical d. difficult
items, identical to their objective counterparts in
form, are subjective because not everybody would
easily agree on the intended correct response.
Therefore, classifying an item as subjective and/ or
objective would not be satisfactory because theyrefer to the quality of the item response rather than
the item form.
Supply or Selection Type Items
In supply type items, the examinee is requiredto supply the appropriate word, phrase, clause, or
sentence in order to respond to the stem. Some
examples of this type follow:
- He…….. to school now. (to go)
- He is interested. reading story books.
(preposition)
On the other hand, in selection type items,the examinee has to select the correct response from
among the several aiternatives provided. Consider
the following examples: - He (is going-goes) to school now.
- He is interested (in-at) reading story books.
Of course, this classification is more reasonable
than the previous one. However, it does not account
for the items which might require both selection and
supply types of activities at the same time. Nor does
it explain the underlying psychological processes for
responding each item type. In other words, thisclassification is not based on a scientific analysis of
the mental activities involved in responding to the
items.
Essay or Multiple-choice Type ItemsIn essay types, the examinee is given the stem
and is free to respond in anyway he wants. These
items are, in fact, a subclass of the supply type. On
the other hand, in multiple-choice type, which is a
kind of selection type referred above, the examinee is
provided with multiple alternatives, from which the
correct one should be selected. This classification
seems less satisfactory than the others because in
addition to having the inadequacies of the previousclassifications, it has one more shortcoming. This
shortcoming evolves from the fact that the length,
style, and variety of the responses given to an essay
type item cannot be controlled. Therefore, the
scoring of such tests would be very subjective and
problematic.
Considering the various classifications of item
format, it seems that none of them covers all possible
item formats comprehensively. They have some
overlaps and disregard the recently-developed item
types. Therefore, a new classification is offered
below on the basis of reconition-production continuum.
As mentioned before, each item consists of two
parts: the stem and the response. According to this
clasification, the form of an item should be
determined by two factors: first the modality of
language and second the processes involved when an
examinee responds to an item. Regarding modality,
an item can be presented orally like in an oral
interview, in written form like in a cloze test and
pictorial (graphic) like in a picture test. In terms of
psychological processes underlying item response,
test items can be conidered to fall somewhere along a
continuum with pure recognition at the one end and
pure production at the other.
In other words, some of the items require pure
recognition such as “true-false” or “multiple-choice”
types. Some others need pure production such as
“free composition” or “free speech”. Still some
others require a combination of recognition and
production activities. Thus, there are at least nine
forms of items, each with clear specification of its
mode and response format, as shown in the table
below.
Item
Mode
Response
Type
Recognition Recognition
Production
Production
Oral True false
MultipleDictation Free Speech
Repetition
Choice
Written True False
Multiple
Cloze
choice
Recitation
Conversion
Explaining
Free Writing
True False Pictorial
Multiple- Describing
Writing
Talking
Choice a Picture about a Picture
This classification is more comrehensive than
the ones already presented. It has certain advatages.
First, it takes into account the modality of the item.
Second, it considers psychological processes which
go on when the examinee attempts to respond to an
item. Third, it corresponds to various activities in
teaching or learning language skills. Fourth and most
importantly, it encompasses all previous classifications as well as new developments in item format. In
the following part, then, examples of each type will
be given and their relevance to different language