In addition, according to Rebecca M. Valette, “achievement tests are usually not built around one set of teaching materials but are
designed for use with students from a variety of different schools and programs.”
8
In the writer’s opinion, achievement test is a test which is designed to know how successful students have mastered the previous materials
of a long period of course and whether they have achieved the educational objectives. So, by achievement test, it is able to compare
among individual students, classes and school progress with others across the country.
According to Wilmar Tinambunan, there are four types of achievement test: placement, formative, diagnostic, and summative
test.
9
1. Placement Test
“Placement tests are designed to assess students’ level of language ability so that they can be placed in the appropriate
course or class. Such tests may be based on aspects of the syllabus taught at the institution concerned, or may be based
on unrelated material. In some language centres students are placed according to their rank in the test results so that, for
example, the students with the top eight scores might go into the top class. In other
centres the students’ ability in different skills such as reading and writing may need to be identified. In
such a centre a student could conceivably be placed in the top reading class, but in the bottom writing class, or some other
combination. In yet other centres placement test may have the purpose of deciding whether students need any further tuition
at all.”
10
Also, a quote by James Dean Brown in his book Testing in Language Programs states that the purpose of this test is to make a
8
Rebecca M. Valette, Modern Language ..., p. 5.
9
Wilmar Tinambunan, Evaluation of Students Achievement, Jakarta: Depdikbud, 1988, p. 7.
10
J, Charles Alderson, et. al., Language Test Construction and Evaluation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 11-12.
group of students who are in the same level of ability so teachers can focus and only concentrate on the problems or learning points
suitable for that level.
11
Moreover, placement tests provide information that helps to place students in the part of learning program most appropriate
with their levels of ability. They are most successful in term of their use when they are constructed for particular situations.
12
Most placement tests constructed by classroom teachers are pretests
which function to know the readiness of students to begin the instruction and to place the students in the part of learning activity
with the proper instruction.
2. Formative Test
Norman E. Gronlund writes that “formative tests are given
periodically during instruction to monitor pupil learning progress and to provide ongoing feedback to pupils and teachers.”
13
It usually covers some parts of instruction, such as unit, chapter, etc.
In line with the opinion above, formative tests are carried out while the instruction is ongoing to identify learning progress
students have made and to give the continuous feedback in term of strengths and weaknesses of learning activity.
14
Furthermore, “the formative test is given during the course of instruction; its purpose
to show which aspects of the chapter the student has mastered and where remedial work is necessary.”
15
11
James Dean Brown, Testing in Language Programs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents, 1996, p. 11.
12
Arthur Hughes, Testing for Language Teachers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 2
nd
Ed., p. 16-17.
13
Norman E. Gronlund, Measurement and Evaluation in Teaching, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1981, 4
th
Ed., p. 125.
14
Wilmar Tinambunan, Evaluation of Students..., p. 8.
15
Rebecca M. Valette, Modern Language ..., p. 10.
