TEST TECHNIQUES

1. Direct versus Indirect Testing

In assessment, there are two categories that most test items fall into
which are direct and indirect test items. Direct test items ask the student to
complete some sort of authentic action. Indirect test items measure a
students knowledge about a subject:
There are two approaches to test construction: Direct versus indirect
testing. Testing is said to be direct when it requires the candidate to perform
precisely the skill that the test wishes to measure. To know how well the
candidates can write composition, get them to write compositions. To know
how well they pronounce a language, get them to speak. The task, and the
text that are used, should be authentic as possible.
Direct testing is easier to carry out when it is intended to measure the
productive skills of speaking and writing. The very acts of speaking and
writing provide information about the students ability. With listening and
reading, however, it is necessary to get students not only to listen or read
but also to demonstrate that they have done this successfully.
Indirect testing attempts to measure the abilities that underlie the
skills in which test is interested. It contains underlined items in which the
student needs to identify as erroneous or inappropriate in formal standard
English.
While the ability to respond to such items has been shown to be
related statistically to the ability to write compositions (although the strength
of the relationship was not particularly great), the two abilities are far from
identical. Another example of indirect testing is Lados (1961) proposed
method of testing pronunciation ability by a paper and pencil test in which
the student has to identify pairs of words which rhyme with each other.
It is worth mentioning that some tests are referred to as semi-direct.
The most obvious examples of these are speaking test where candidates
respond to tape-recorded stimuli, with their own responses being recorded
and later scored. These tests are semi-direct in the sense that, although not
direct, they simulate direct testing.

ASSESSMENT, ENGLISH

DIRECT AND INDIRECT TEST ITEMS

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015 DR. DARRIN 2 COMMENTS
In assessment, there are two categories that most test items fall into which
are direct and indirect test items. Direct test items ask the student to
complete some sort of authentic action. Indirect test items measure a
students knowledge about a subject. This post will provide examples of test
items that are either direct or indirect items.
Direct Test Items
Direct test items used authentic assessment approaches. Examples in TESOL
would include the following

For speaking: Interviews and presentations

For writing: Essay questions
For reading: Using real reading material and having the student
respond to question verbally and or in writing
For listening: Following oral directions to complete a task

The primary goal of direct test items is to be as much like real-life as

possible. Often, direct testing items are integrative, which means that the
student has to apply several skills at once. For example, presentations
involve more than just speaking but also the writing of the speech, the
reading or memorizing of the speech as well as the critical thinking skills to
develop the speech.
Indirect Test Items
Indirect test items assess knowledge without authentic application. Below
are some common examples of indirect test items.

Multiple choice questions

Cloze items
Paraphrasing
Sentence re-ordering

Multiple Choice
Multiple choice questions involve the use of a question followed by several
potential answers. It is the job of the student to determine what is the most

appropriate answer. Some challenges with writing multiple choice is the

difficulty of writing incorrect choices. For ever correct answer you need
several wrong ones. Another problem is that with training, students can learn
how to improve their success on multiple choice test without having a
stronger knowledge of the subject matter.
Cloze Items
Cloze item involve giving the student a paragraph our sentence with one or
more blanks in it that the student have to complete. One problem with Cloze
items is that more than one answer may be acceptable for a blank. This can
lead to a great deal of confusion when marking the test.
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing is strictly for TESOL and involves having the student rewrite a
sentence in a slightly different way as the example below.
Im sorry I did not go to the assembly
I wish________________________________
In the example above the student needs to write the sentence in quotes
starting with the phrase I wish. The challenging is determining if the
paraphrase is reasonable as this is highly subjective.
Sentence Re-Ordering
In this item for TESOL assessment, a student is given a sentence that is out
of order and they have to arrange the words so that an understandable
sentence is developed. This one way to assess knowledge of syntax. The
challenge is that for complex sentences more than one answer may be
possible
It is important to remember that all indirect items can be integrative or
discrete-point. Unlike integrative, discrete point only measures one narrow
aspect of knowledge at a time.
Conclusion

A combination of direct and indirect test items would probably best ensure
that a teacher is assessing students so that they have success. What mixture
of the two to use always depends on the context and needs of the studnets