Testing as learning a study on the validity and reliability of teacher designed class test question papers in select affiliated colleges of anna university tamil nadu

Abstract

The notion of assessment of English at the tertiary level in engineering colleges seems to have magnified in terms of quantity but not so much in terms of quality. Even though there is much of testing happening at the tertiary level, there still exists a bone of contention whether the assessment happening is actually serving the real purpose of assessing the true knowledge of the students. This has posed a number of intriguing questions in the field of language testing. It is moreover an effective instrument designed to measure the students learning ability at a given point of time. Evaluation of students has always been done by means of questions which test content knowledge and by recalling inherent information. Advanced, fresh and original ideas can be used by teachers to revamp the traditional methodology to bring effective results in the teaching learning procedure. In the context of English language testing, a teacher is certified as being good or bad by the pass percentage of his or her class. So the teacher is involuntarily encouraged to coax students to indulge in cramming up of the lessons or to practice probable questions. In this study, the researcher has attempted to analyse the question papers set by teachers in different engineering colleges for internal examinations in order to get a comprehensive view of the kind of testing that is adhered to in the present circumstances. Roughly about 35 question papers were chosen to help the researcher perceive the predicament of the kind of question papers given to the students. A detailed scrutiny of the 20 question papers set by teachers from the colleges affiliated to Anna University for the first year engineering students reveals the not so good truth that these question papers do not seem to be testing what needs to be tested Two major findings of this study expose the basic problems associated with testing in today s world. One major eye opener is that some of our teachers lack assessment literacy. They seem to be unaware of the concepts of validity,