Test Construction Principles Violated in Selected Summative Tests in English

Abstract

Teachers give many forms of assessment to measure their students’ performance and achievement. Paper and pencil test might be considered as an old and traditional form of assessment, but it is still effective until now. However, it has been observed that many test papers contain erroneous test papers. Thus, this descriptive study aimed to determine the test construction principles violated in sixteen summative tests in English gathered from high school teachers in a public secondary school in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, Philippines.  Frequency counts and percentages were used to treat the data gathered. Interpretation and analysis of data were guided by the test construction principles used in the study of Lin (2002). Results of the study show that most of the vocabulary items violated the principle on making all the options with the same word class. On the other hand, the majority of the grammar test items used mixed options. When it comes to the reading comprehension section, most of the items can be answered from general knowledge. These test construction violations, in many ways, could hamper effective and successful assessments.