Direct and Indirect Testing: Discrete Item and Integrative Tests,
These direct tests all demand that the learner integrates a variety of skills and items of linguistic knowledge to complete the test, and show how
Direct and Indirect Testing: Discrete Item and Integrative Tests,
Direct Test Discrete item (or discrete point) tests are tests that test one element of language at a time. For example, the following multiple-choice item tests only the learner's knowledge of the correct past form of the verb sing : When I was a child I .......... in a choir. a. sing b. Singed c. song d. sung e. sang They have the advantages of often being practical to administer and mark, and objective in terms of marking. However, they show only the learners ability to recognise or produce individual items - not how s/he would use the language in actual communication. In other words, they are inevitably indirect tests - they provide evidence of the learners' ability to recognise or produce certain specific elements of the language, but do not demonstrate how they might actually use them (or anything else) in communication. Learners’ abilities are inferred rather than demonstrated. Integrative tests Integrative tests, on the other hand, maybe either be direct or indi…
