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Cornerstones Case Study: Assessing the Skill Areas

Cornerstones Case Study: Assessing the Skill Areas. Christine Coombe. Ms. Wright’s & Mr. Knott’s Cornerstone Case Study. High school ESL and Spanish teachers Teaching load: each teach 2 advanced-level ESL classes Students from many language backgrounds & cultures

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Cornerstones Case Study: Assessing the Skill Areas

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  1. Cornerstones Case Study:Assessing the Skill Areas Christine Coombe

  2. Ms. Wright’s & Mr. Knott’s Cornerstone Case Study • High school ESL and Spanish teachers • Teaching load: each teach 2 advanced-level ESL classes • Students from many language backgrounds & cultures • Use integrated-skills textbook, communicative methodology

  3. Their Test • They wanted to keep it simple. • No time to construct an integrated skills test, so they decided to base grades solely on a reading test. • Ms. Wright hinted to one class that an article from yesterday’s front page of the newspaper might be the focus of the exam. • Task: “Read this newspaper article and answer the questions.” • The focus of the article “Hydro-electric Turbines” was not from any of their unit themes • Ss received 10 MCQs focusing on local information only because main idea Qs take more time to construct • Most Qs had 4 response options but some Qs only had 3 • Ms Wright enlarged the article by 50% so her Ss could read it better.

  4. Test Administration Procedures • Test was administered to Ms. Wright’s classes on Monday morning and to Mr. Knott’s classes the following Wednesday. • Ms. Wright gave one class period; Mr. Knott allowed Ss two class periods to complete the test • Mr. Knott translated some of the difficult words in Spanish for his Spanish-speaking Ss • He let all his Ss use dictionaries to look up unknown words • During the test, a student noticed that there was no answer for Question 3 so Mr. Knott did not count that item • No one in Mrs. Wright’s class noticed

  5. Grading Procedures • Neither told their Ss when to expect their grades. • Both were busy, so they graded their own Ss papers over several days during the next week. • Ss got their tests back 10 days later. • The teachers impressionistically thought it was a good exam because almost all Ss got As. • To achieve a better curve for one of her classes, Ms. Wright added 5 pts. to some Ss’ papers

  6. Post-exam Follow Up • Ms. Wright entered grades in her grade book but didn’t annotate or analyze them. • Mr. Knott realized he gave the papers to the Ss before he entered the grades. He asked for them back after the students had them for 2 days. • At end of semester, there were too many A’s so the administrator asked them to ‘review’ their marks. • Ss thought the exam was worth 25% of the final grade, it was then downgraded to 15%. • Next year they plan to reuse the same test but will switch to T/F questions.

  7. What’s wrong with their test? • Which cornerstones of testing did they violate? • Validity • Reliability • Practicality • Washback • Authenticity • Transparency • Security

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