This document outlines the key steps and characteristics for constructing a proper test: 1) The planning stage involves determining test content, scope, and item development. 2) Writing clear, unambiguous test items and reviewing items with a team are important steps. 3) Pre-testing on a similar group is crucial for ensuring test validity, reliability, objectivity, comprehensiveness, simplicity, and scorability. 4) A proper test should measure what it intends to measure, yield consistent results, be scored the same by different people, cover all relevant material, be written simply, and have a clearly defined scoring system. Practicality and washback, or the test's influence on teaching, are

1. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A
PROPER TEST
Authors:
Jorge Castillo
Arianny Rodríguez

2. INTRODUCTION
 One of the most used instruments in the academic
enviroenment to evaluate students is the test.
 A test has to have these characteristcs in order to
be a proper instrument of evaluation.
 There are different views or perspectives on which
characteristics a proper test should have.

3. STEPS IN CONSTRUCTING A TEST:
A) PLANNING
 In constructing a test is to determine the
content, the scope of the test, as well as the
manner in which test items should be developed.
 In the planning stage, one should determine the
materials upon which test items are to be based

4. B) WRITING TEST ITEMS
 Instructions must be quite clear to the examinees.
Complicated syntax, difficult vocabulary, and
ambiguous directions must be absolutely avoided.
 The items should not test the examinee’s general
knowledge.
 All the choices or alternatives must be
grammatically correct by themselves.
Ali ------------ to school yesterday.
1. went 3. has go
2. goed 4. have gone

5.  Items should not start with a blank.
 In the same item, the alternatives should be of similar
length, difficulty, and type of grammatical structures.

6. C) REVIEWING TEST ITEMS
 Test construction is a collaborative activity. An
individual, no matter how expert he may be, is
potentially subject to making mistakes.
 Test items should be reviewed by a team of
experts.

7. D) PRE-TESTING
 Pre-testing, a very crucial step in test
constructing, refers to administering the test to a
group of examinees who are similar in knowledge
to the target group.

8. CHARACTERISTICS OF A PROPER TEST
Validity:
A test is considered as valid when it measures
what it is supposed to measure.

9. RELIABILITY:
It is the extent to which an experiment, test or
any measuring procedure shows the same result on
repeated trials.

10. OBJECTIVITY:
It means that if the test is marked by different
people, the score will be the same.

11. COMPREHENSIVENESS:
A good test should include items from different
areas of material assigned for the test. e.g ( dialogue
- composition - comprehension - grammar -
vocabulary - orthography - dictation - handwriting )

12. SIMPLICITY:
Simplicity means that the test should be written
in a clear , correct and simple language , it is
important to keep the method of testing as simple as
possible while still testing the skill you intend to test . (
Avoid ambiguous questions and ambiguous
instructions ) .

13. SCORABILITY
Scorability means that each item in
the test has its own mark related to the
distribution of marks given by The
Ministry of Education.

14. PRACTICALITY
 It is the relationship between the resources that will
be required in the design, development and use of
the test and the resources that will be avaliable for
these activities.
 Practicality: ___Avaliable Resources_
Required Resources

15. (TYPES OF RESOURCES)
 Human Resources. (e.g. Test writers, test
administrators, raters, among others).
 Material Resources:
 Space (rooms for test development and administration)
 Equipment (typewriters, computers, etc)
 Materials (paper, pictures, library resources)
 Time (developing time and time for specific tasks)

16. WASHBACK
 There are numerous definitions of washbacks, here
are some of them:
 There is a natural tendency for both teachers and
students to tailor their classroom activities to the
demands of the test, especially when the test is
very important to the future of the students, and
pass rates are used as a measure of teacher
success. This influence of the test on the classroom
(referred to as washback by language testers) is, of
course, very important; this washback effect can be
either beneficial or harmful. (p. 17)

17.  the washback effect, sometimes referred to as the
systemic validity of a test. Refers to the impact of a
test on classroom pedagogy, curriculum
development, and educational policy.
 Washback effect refers to the impact (or effect) that
tests have on teaching and learning.
 The concept of backwash deals with the
unforeseen side-effects of testing and not to the
intended effects when the primary goal of the
examination is the control of curricula.

18. CONCLUSIONS
 Creating a valid test is not an easy task, as
teachers we have to very careful to follow the
instructions that we have seen in this presentation.
Otherwise our test are not going to be a valid
instrument of evaluation.

19. QUESTIONS?