Job Discussion Forums

[seamallowance]

[twizzler1]

Throw in a speaking test for good measure. I find the written test and to some degree the listening test most students are generally ok with. Its the speaking test that sorts the wheat from the chaff and cheating can't really help the student when he has to stand and talk, especially if its for 50% of the final grade.

[Teatime of Soul]

[Niederbom]

[clownshow]

Teatime of Soul wrote: Nothing I wrote suggested any compromise of either reliability or validity.




Sorry Teatime, I guess I should have stressed that standardized tests are perceived as being more fair than non-standardized tests while permitting more reliable comparison of outcomes across the board.

clownshow wrote:
Working within the guidelines of administration is the primary duty of the teacher.

7969 wrote: working within the guidelines of administration (and therefore not thinking outside the box) is the primary duty of brain dead bureaucrats, many of whom are employed in education ministries.

While I may agree with you and I am fast approaching retirement, these bureaucrats do control the system and therefore if you want to continue to educate in a professional setting, it is necessary to compromise some personal principles so as to continue working. There is a very narrow avenue of approach as to testing and overstepping ones boundaries when it comes to responsibilities. If the security of a test isn't in your job description, to assume the duty is taking a chance. Those who are ESL teachers and don't really have career at stake can easily disregard protocol and perhaps the system is better for your actions, but for those of us that require the managements approval to continue working; well for the unfortunate, we must abide by the rules. Real Academia is brutal.

[Teatime of Soul]

Clownshow:

[Ariadne]

"Those who are ESL teachers and don't really have career at stake..."

"Real Academia is brutal."

Could you please be just a little more condescending? It's quite entertaining.

.

[clownshow]

It wasn't my intention to be condescending, only truthful as to the situations as I have found them in professional settings.

Teatime, again sorry if I have offended you and yes I do understand that the exact same questions with the exact same distractors, except the questions and
distractions are shuffled within the test and within the questions as well as I understand that some test takers will latch on to any differences presented in a testing situation and therefore when you alter a test in any manor it is an invitation to disallow the validity of the testing procedure.

Kind of a hostile environment for one that promotes an understanding of living and working in China.

[Teatime of Soul]

Not so much a hostile environment; more a target rich environment for educating.

[wangdaning]

[Teatime of Soul]

Good point.

They would first have to admit cheating and then make the complaint that although present, the correct answer wasn't exactly where they expected it to be on their neighbor's paper.

Thanks, you made me smile at the thought.

[Silent Shadow]

[clownshow]

I think I may be referring to a different kind of testing procedures, as most test I deal with are created at the home university and are carefully considered as to objections that could be brought before an administration. What has become clear to me is that the test many have referred to are coming from what has been termed (on another thread) as language mills, or after hours schools and ESL programs whereas the grades generated are not figured into a overall performance which determines graduation status.

[Teatime of Soul]

I was referring to grades in post secondary academic institutions. Academic institutions, in theory, should have people who understand how to construct reliable and valid measurement instruments.

But, since you can find teachers from the west teaching at Colleges in China without training or experience in test construction, there is no assurance they, or perhaps even their their supervisors have adequate skills to create a valid and reliable test.

I know an after hours schools with two teachers with masters degrees in education on the staff who are quite capable of creating valid and reliable measurement instruments. So the educational milieu is not an indicator so much as the skills of the person creating the test.

I know a business unit where the workforce is trained and tested annually. Workers within the workforce have their promotions and merit pay determined, in part, by their annual tests. Lawsuits and union grievances can be filed if the workers believe the test was improperly constructed. Those test developers have sixty pages of statistics printed out after administering a 120 question test for the workforce and those statistics provide a detailed look into the reliability and validity of the test.

A test is reliable and valid or it isn't. Whether the results of the assessment will be used to determine graduation status is, of course, immaterial. It is only material that the instrument used to assess the student was properly constructed.

From Wikipedia

[mat chen]

It is important to teach your students proper cheating. Now the first thing to teach them is that the best student should sit front center in the class. When the answer is A they scratch the top of their head. When the answer is B they should rub their chin. Now when the answer is C they should touch their right ear and when the answer is D they should touch their left ear. Now if per chance the invigator is on to this system they should go to the coughing method. One cough is A two coughs B three coughs C and four coughs D.
Now the second thing to teach them in these basic listening test is to open the test when they are giving instructions. These instructions take about ten minutes. Teach them reading because these test are reading tests. You read the answers and try to predict the topics that will be spoken.
Now if the invigilator is not a typical Chinese teacher who takes the job seriously and doesn't spend their time looking out the window during the exam and calls the students on their cheating, you tell the students to say "Ting bu dong" If they knew English they wouldn't be taking the test Right?
English is an Art not a science. Don't take your job so seriously folks. An art is to be enjoyed.