Significance of the Study

such as questions, statements in orally or writing by using category system such as a scoring. Talking about the summative test, actually it is one of the types of the achievement test. The achievement test itself including in the test which can determine the student’s competent grades in the past of the learning activities in the classroom. The type of the achievement test which often used by the teacher to evaluate the successfulness his or her teaching and learning in the classroom is summative test. According to WilmarTinambunan in his book, “the summative test is intended to show the standard which the students have now reached in relation to other students at the same stage. Therefore it typically comes at the end of a course or unit of instruction.” 4 To support the statement above, the summative test is given at the end of a marking period and measures the “sum” total of the material covered. On this type of a test, students are usually ranked and graded. 5 The summative test is given in the end because it comes at the end of a course or unit of instruction. It is designed to determine the extent to which the instructional objectives have been achieved and is used primarily for assigning course grades or certifying pupil mastery of the intended learning outcomes. 6 It means that summative test is tested in the end of a course to know the students’ competence from all the materials which have been taught by the teacher. 4 Ibid, p. 9. 5 Rebecca M. Valette, Modern Language Testing, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1977, p. 11. 6 Norman E. Gronlund, Measurement and Evaluation in Teaching, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985, p. 12.

2. Categories of Good Test in Summative Test

Actually, the summative test has to represent all the materials which have been taught by the teacher. So, the teacher should have some criteria of good summative test. Those are validity, reliability, and practicality.

a. Validity

According to Wilmar Tinambunan, “Validity refers to the extent to which the results of an evaluation procedure serve the particular uses for which they are intended. Thus, the validity of the test is the extent to which the test measure what is intended to measure.” 7 It can be concluded that the test will be useful if the test is able to measure what is intended to measure to know the quality of the test. It means that the test items in the summative test, the test maker must give the materials which are covered as a category of good test.

b. Reliability

The second criteria of good test are reliability. It is measured by a correlation between the scores of the same set of students on two consecutive administrations of the test. 8 It can be supporte d by Herbert and William that, “reliability refers to the degree to which the measurements yielded by a test are consistent or stable.” 9 It means that, if the test has been tested more than once in the same student in the different time but the score does not really different or change drastically with the score before it means the test can be called reliable. Another opinion, result of the score of the test not only stable but also dependable means show of the readiness of a test, and predictable that is the test is able to predict the next the result. Heaton states that there are five factors affecting reliability of the test. The first is the extent of the sample of material selected for testing, the second is the 7 Wilmar Tinambunan, op.cit., p. 11. 8 Robert Lado, Language Testing, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964, p.31. 9 Herbert J. Klausmeier and William Goodwin, Learning and Human Abilities, 2 nd Ed., New York: Harper Row, Publisher, 1961, p. 585.