94 the product, the estimation of the money, manpower and time required to develop the
product. He says that planning is necessary in order to anticipate needed materials, professional help and field test sites. Therefore a good plan can help the developer
avoid much wasted work during later phases of the R D cycle. Since the aim of the research was focused on the theoretical of the testing model, the researcher cut off the
ten steps of Borg’s RD cycle into 5 essential steps as follows:
3. Development of the Preliminary Form of the Product
The development of the preliminary form was done after the planning was completed. The preliminary product was the theoretical blue-print and prototype of
Figure 3.1. The research design of the development of the testing instrument RESEARCH AND INFORMATION
COLLECTION: Library research and Questionnaire distribution
PLANNING:
Planning for conducting the research and development
DEVELOPMENT of THE PRELIMINARY PRODUCT
PRELIMINARY FIELD TESTING
MAIN PRODUCT REVISION
95 the testing instrument. The development was referred to complementary two theories.
The first theory, Genesee’s test development process described as follows:
Referring to Genesee’s, firstly, the researcher set up the language objective which refered to language skills that the Indonesia elementary school students were
expected to acquire. Secondly, after the objective being defined, the researcher
selected tasks that extracted the kinds of language skills to be assessed. Thirdly, after the selecting appropriate test task, the researcher devised and assembled test tasks
which included the combination of factors: instructional objective, student’s level proficiency, instructional activities and available testing resources. And lastly, the
researcher devised scoring system which covered time of completing test, test instructions, layout and format and grading accuracy.
The second theory, Bachman and Palmer’s framework for developing language test which included characteristics of the setting, characteristics of the input, and
characteristics of the expected response. The first three phases of Genesee’s that
Figure 3.2. The test development process Geneese, 2007: 159
Describe language objective
Select appropriate test tasks
Devise and assemble test tasks
Devise a scoring system
96 were seting up the language objective, selecting tasks and devising and assembling
test tasks were similar with those of Bachman and Palmer‘s. The formulation of the instrument development phases as the result of this two complementary theories was
as follows:
The above figure showed the process of the development of the testing instrument the researcher underwent. The first phase was the researcher formulated the language test
objective by considering some key aspects, namely: communicative English
Selecting and devising of test task Topics of real world
Environment Fun and pleasure
Imaginative
Formulating language test objective with consideration of:
English as lingua franca=English communicative competence
Characters of children of between the concrete operational and formal
operational stage Post-modernism
English teaching and learning in Indonesian elementary schools
Assembling and scoring system Characters of test task: closed ended,
limited, open ended tasks Time of completing test
Test instructions Layout and format and grading accuracy
Benchmarking to samples of testing of written
English competence for elementary students from
other countries
Figure 3.3. The development process of the testing instrument
97 competence, characters of children of between the concrete operational and formal
operational stage, post-modernism philosophy and English teaching and learning in Indonesian elementary schools. The language test objective was formulated in the
form of language aspects and indicators as they were mentioned in the blue print of the testing instrument being developed. The second phase, referring to the language
test objective had been formulated; the researcher selected and devised the test task, such as: topics of real world environment which evoked children’s imagination, fun
and pleasure. The last phase was researcher assembled and set up the scoring system. Hence, the researcher determined the character of the test tasks, time of completing
test, test instructions, and its layout, format and grading accuracy. To improve the formulation of the design, the researcher also conducted a benchmarking to some test
samples of written English competence for elementary students from other countries. The researcher got some samples from Japan and America. Among the samples, the
researcher decided to choose Cambridge Young Learners English Flyers Reading and Writing which is published by University of Cambridge, ESOL examinations of
English for Speakers of Other Languages as the main reference. Although the test content was not matched with the indicators of the concept of English competence of
Indonesian elementary school students, the reseracher considered the layout and design was quite suitable for the pupils.
4. Preliminary Field Test
