"I think that perfect objectivity is an unrealistic goal; fairness, however, is not." -Michael Pollan
I really enjoyed our class on Friday. It was nice to meet everyone finally and exchange experiences with assessment. I liked having the opportunity to meet with a small group and go over the aspects of testing. Hearing positive and negative experiences surrounding test validity, authenticity, practicality, and reliability helped to shed light on the importance of proper assessment. As teachers, I believe it is not only important to create assessments that have all the appropriate elements, but that we speak up about tests and assessments including standardized tests when we notice that all aspects are not in order. That is why I chose my quote. Since some objectivity is expected in good assessment, particularly concerning second language testing, and as humans, we all have different perspectives, experiences and therefore judgements, we cannot expect perfect objectivity. What we discussed in class today was fairness. It is only fair for test-takers to be tested on the material studied, to be given a reasonable amount of time, to be graded in a manner that is unbiased and consistent, to understand the directions and the questions, and to be given testing experiences that are as realistic as possible. Bearing in mind our own experiences and the experiences of our peers in testing and assessment circumstances, we will be more aware of testing challenges and will strive for fairness.
I agree that tests should definitely be fair and students should be tested on what they were actually taught. I have taken tests in classes before where I showed up for all of the classes, took good notes, and read all of the material but then was wondering where the teachers got some of their test questions from. They said the questions came from the chapters that we were supposed to read though some of the information on the test was not actually in the chapters or presented in class.
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