本书的写作目的是帮助关注教育测试与评价理论的教师了解这一领域的基本理念,并帮助他们分析课堂教学评价的案例。
近几年,大量的有关语言测试理论书籍的先后出版,说明越来越多的教师和教育管理者认识到测评在教学中的重要作用,并且关心这一领域的研究发展与动向。但是,大部分中小学教师由于语言及专业知识有限,对于理论性很强的专著存在着理解上的困难,本书会使他们消除畏惧心理。
本书与实际紧密结合,语言简朴,非常适合中小学教师和一切关注语言教学发展和教学测评的人士使用。也可用作教师培训的教材,每章作为一个独立的话题供大家讨论。

导读
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
INTRODUCTION TWENTY QUESTIONS
CHAPTER 1 ASSESSMENT AS INFORMATION GATHERING
CHAPTER 2 ANALYZING TESTS:THE CASE OF DICTATION
StandardDictations and Wesche's Framework
Pnrnnl Dictations
Graduated Dictations
CHAPTER 3 CONFLICTING PURPOSES OF ASSESSMENT
Jorm-referencedand Criterion—referenced Testing
Purposes ofLanguage Assessment
CHAPTER 4 THE ROLE OF BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE IN THE ASSESSMENT OF RECEPTIVE SKILLS
CHAPTER 5 A CLOZE-KNI TFAMILY
“Fill-in”Items
Cloze Tests
Gtests
CHAPTER 6 ANOTHER DILEMMA:CONTRASTING PAIRS OF CONCEPTs
Direct andIndirect Tests
Discrete-point and Integrative Testing
Objective and Subjective Scoring
CHAPTER 7 SOME USEFUL STATISTICAL TOOLS
Measures ofCentral Tendehey
Measures ofDispersion
Frequency Polygons
Degrees ofFreedom
Calculating Standard Deviation
StandardizedScores
CHAPTER 8 THE CORRELATION FAMILY
Types ofData
Basic Correlation Concepts
Pearson's Correlation Coefficlem
Overlapping Variance
spearman's Rank-order Correlation
Point.biserial Correlation Coefficient
CHAPTER 9 MULTIPLE—CHOICE TESTS AND ITEM ANALYSES
Multiple—choice Tests
Item Facility
Distractor Analysis
Item Discrimination
Response Frequenw Distribution On the Item Editing Task
CHAPERT 10 MEASURING MEANING:DICTOCOMPS AND STRIP STORIES
CHAPTER 11 ELICITING SPEECH SAMPLES IN ROLE PLAYS
Plausibility and Experience
Unequa,Powet Discourse
Some Issues in Scoring Speech Samples
Computing Rater Reliability
CHAPTER 12 THREE APPROACHES TO SCORING WRITING SAMPLES
Holistic Scoring
Analytic Scoring
Objective Scoring
CHAPTER 13 "ALTERNATIVE" ASSESSMENTS:PERFORMANCE TESTS
AND PORTFOLIOS
Performance Tests
Portfolio Assessment
CHAPTER 14 SELF—ASSESSMENT IN LANGUAGE LEARNING
GLOSSARY
REFERENCES