When did the first achievement tests appear? Tests of special abilities and achievements. These tests serve several purposes.

There are two main areas of application of achievement tests: school education and vocational training, professional selection.

Numerous functions of achievement tests have long been recognized in education. Most of the tests used here are standardized. The main purpose of their use is to compare test results with the norms or the expected result for a certain group of students.

Achievement tests apply:

§ As auxiliary means of determining the educational program necessary for students (distribution by classes and streams).

§ As a necessary element in the implementation of remedial education programs and the identification of students experiencing difficulties in mastering the material of certain academic disciplines.

§ As a tool for certifying students' achievements through entrance testing and testing at the end of the course.

§ As a means of monitoring the results of the assimilation of individual training programs.

§ As an auxiliary method for evaluating educational programs and their improvement.

Achievement test scores indicate how much knowledge and skills are actually being taught to students. In some countries, the use of achievement tests has acquired a national scale, their results affect the making of responsible decisions in the field of education planning, the financing of educational programs and projects, so it is no coincidence that these tests attract increased attention and are criticized.

First of all, the possibilities of achievement tests in identifying the most important results of mastering the school curriculum are critically evaluated.

Analyzing the existing experience of using testing in education, J. Raven notes that traditional achievement tests reveal "possession of randomly selected fragments of information of the lower level, snatched from the vast system of knowledge that has developed in the relevant scientific disciplines."

Critical remarks about achievement tests encourage researchers to search for and develop new approaches to diagnosing learning outcomes. These include:

§ Criteria-oriented testing;

§ Methods for diagnosing competence;

§ Process testing, which determines the skills of students in the process of completing tasks in real life situations.

Vocational training and vocational training is another very common area of ​​application for achievement tests. Here they are mainly used for the following:

Measuring the effectiveness of training or training in relatively known and controlled work environments;

Selection of personnel for certain work positions requiring relevant professional knowledge and experience;

Determining the qualifications of employees in resolving issues of retraining and career planning.

A distinctive feature of professional achievement tests is their high specificity, since these tests are developed to take into account knowledge, skills, and abilities in a highly specialized area. The development of such tests is mostly carried out on a critical basis. As a criterion, the level of mastery of knowledge and skills required for successful professional activity is usually considered. The establishment of such a criterion is carried out by analyzing the qualification requirements and describing the process of performing work tasks. In order to get a fairly complete picture of professional activity, the test compiler also consults with experts in the field - industrial training instructors, experienced workers, heads of departments.

The use of tests to assess professional achievement has certain limitations.

First, they are determined by dynamic processes of changes in the content of professions. From a modern specialist, not only highly specialized knowledge and skills are required, but also meta-professional knowledge and skills used in various areas of labor activity. The presence of such competencies allows a specialist to flexibly adapt to the new requirements of professional activity and thereby achieve a high level of its development.

To understand the differences between pedagogical and psychological tests, it is necessary to introduce the concept of achievement tests and ability tests. Among all types of standardized tests, achievement tests outnumber all others. They were created to measure the effectiveness of programs and the learning process. It is this type of test that is generally associated with the name "pedagogical test". Achievement tests are usually contrasted with psychological ability tests, which consist of general intelligence tests, comprehensive ability batteries, and special ability tests. A. Anastasi believes that “from a certain point of view, the differences between the tests of achievement and ability are differences in the degree of uniformity of the corresponding previous experience. This means that achievement tests measure the impact of a relatively standardized course of study, such as a course in biology, physics, or programming. Unlike achievement tests, performance on ability tests reflects the cumulative impact of diverse daily life experiences.” It can be said that aptitude tests measure learning performance under relatively unsupervised and unknown conditions, while achievement tests measure learning performance under partially known and controlled conditions.

Another difference between aptitude tests and achievement tests is the purpose of their use. Aptitude tests provide some slice of psychological data, on the basis of which the performance of a particular activity is predicted and an assumption is made about possible achievements in a new situation. The results of aptitude tests contain information that makes it possible to assess the feasibility of an individual taking special training courses. In contrast, achievement tests usually provide a final assessment of an individual's achievement upon completion of training, in which the main interest is focused on what information the individual owns and what can do by now. This difference between tests is perhaps best seen when assessing their validity. The best way to evaluate aptitude tests is to carry out predictive, criteria-based validation, while achievement tests are primarily assessed in terms of content validity.

However, it must be recognized that the differences between aptitude and achievement tests are not so clear-cut. Some aptitude tests may reflect a fairly specific and uniform prior educational program, while achievement tests may cover a relatively broad, non-standardized course of study and be used as probabilistic information about future learning opportunities. In essence, achievement tests serve the same purpose as aptitude tests. Let's say a student's performance in math was determined by their score on an achievement test, which could then be used to predict their performance in algebra.

When considering the difference between ability and achievement tests, one should not think that achievement tests measure learning performance and ability tests are innate, learning-independent abilities. Such an erroneous judgment was quite common at the dawn of psychological testing, but was largely revised when clarifying the meaning of the concepts used in psychometry. Without a doubt, all psychological tests measure the actual behavior of the individual, and it inevitably reflects the impact of past training. However, the fact that each benchmark is associated with the "past" does not eliminate its association with the "future".

An important difference between psychological tests and pedagogical ones is seen in the fact that when compiling the first, researchers try to take into account the predisposition of students to various types of representative systems (visuals, auditory, kinesthetics) and various types of intelligence (verbal, logical, spatial, etc.). Unfortunately, in pedagogy, the possibilities of such accounting are significantly limited, firstly, by the predominance of sign-logical visual information in the school, aimed at developing the corresponding types of intelligence. As a rule, students are required to reproduce rationalized and verbal (written or oral) information about facts. Therefore, often children with more developed spatial abilities appear to be underachieving, and children with more developed verbal abilities than spatial ones seem unusually talented.

The numerous functions of achievement tests have long been recognized in education. As a means of grading, such tests are good for their objectivity and uniformity. If they are properly constructed, they also have other advantages: their content is adequate to the subject being studied, they nullify the action of random factors in the evaluation procedure. Achievement tests are also an important component of remedial education programs because they can be used both to identify learners who are not capable of particular types of learning and to measure progress in remedial programs.

In all types of learning, the periodic application of well-designed and appropriately selected achievement tests facilitates this process. Such tests reveal the shortcomings of past learning, suggest the direction of the next and provide motivation for the learner. The motivating power of knowing one's own results was repeatedly revealed by psychological experiments with a wide variety of learning situations: the age of the subjects and their educational level were varied. The effectiveness of such self-examination is usually immediate. Therefore, when achievement testing is used primarily as a teaching tool, it is desirable that students become aware of mistakes made as early as possible.

In addition, achievement tests help tailor the course of study to the needs of the individual. Teaching is more fruitful when it starts from the stage at which the student is already. Conducting testing at the beginning of the school year allows you to take constructive steps to eliminate the main gaps in students' knowledge found during the tests.

It is especially important in this regard to see the multiple conditions that affect both test performance and schooling, including the cumulative influence of past and present life experiences acquired outside the school environment.

So, intelligence is often associated with developed logical and mathematical abilities or high awareness of a person. But today this interpretation seems to be clearly simplified and limited. Intelligence - this is our ability to successfully respond to new situations and learn from experience (G. Gardner). The possibilities of a person's creative development and the success of future professional and life adaptation are determined with the development of seven types of intelligence.

1. Verbal intelligence - these are abilities that involve the ability to argue, convince, talk, support and teach with the help of speech skills. This kind of intelligence is simply necessary for journalists, lawyers, writers, teachers. Training of verbal intelligence successfully takes place in the operations of reading, writing, writing and in the process of public speaking (discussions, monologues, asking and answering questions).

2.Logical and mathematical intelligence - the ability to perform operations with numbers and logic, the ability to think in terms of cause and effect, formulate abstracts, develop concepts, analyze, classify and generalize.

3.Spatial Visual Intelligence – this kind of intelligence works in images, metaphors and spatial representations. People with a developed spatial intelligence are distinguished by observation, the ability to easily navigate the terrain and in an unfamiliar environment, and a preference for expressing their ideas graphically. This kind of intelligence is the basis of the professional activity of architects, photographers, painters, sculptors, pilots, mechanics, engineers.

4.Musical-rhythmic intelligence associated with a person's ability to perceive rhythms and melodies, harmony and disharmony, memorize musical intonations, modes and sound combinations.

5. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence is the intelligence of our body. It includes: the ability to control movements, deftly operate parts of the body, the ability to develop and maintain physical qualities. Unfortunately, in the educational process, this intelligence is unacceptably neglected.

6.interpersonal intelligence - this means the ability to communicate, interact with people, understand, feel and take into account the uniqueness of each, as well as the ability to adequately present, without trying to hide behind others, behind one's projections, patterns, stereotypes. The development of this intelligence is possible only in conditions of interactive learning.

LECTURE No. 4. Tests of special abilities and achievements

The impetus for the development of tests of special abilities was the powerful development of professional counseling, as well as professional selection and distribution of personnel in industry and the military. Tests of mechanical, clerical, musical, artistic abilities began to appear. Created test batteries(sets) for the selection of applicants to medical, legal, engineering and other educational institutions. About a dozen comprehensive capability batteries have been developed for use in education, counseling and staff assignments. Differing in composition, methodological qualities, they are similar in one thing - they are characterized by low differential validity. Students who choose different areas of education or professional activity differ slightly in their test profiles.

The theoretical basis for the construction of complex batteries of ability tests was the use of a special technique for processing data on individual differences and correlations between them - factor analysis. Factor analysis made it possible to more accurately define and classify special abilities.

English psychologist Charles Spearman in 1904 came to the conclusion that a positive correlation between tests for various abilities (for example, mathematical and literary) reveals some common general factor. He designated it with the letter "g" (from the English general - "general"). In addition to the factor common to all types of activity, each of them reveals a specific factor that is unique to this type of activity (S-factor).

Ch. Spearman's theory is called two-factor. According to its provisions, the purpose of psychological testing should be the measurement of g in individuals. If such a factor manifests itself in all studied mental functions, then its presence is the only basis for predicting the individual's behavior in different situations. The measurement of specific factors does not make sense, since they can only reveal themselves in a given situation.

Spearman did not deny that the two-factor theory required refinement. If the compared activities are similar, then to some extent their correlation may be the result not only of the factor g, but also of some intermediate factor - not as general as g, but not as specific as S. Such a factor, which is characteristic only of a part activities, was called group.

Later, the point of view spread, according to which the structure of properties consists of a number of rather broad group factors, each of which can have a different weight in different tests. For example, a verbal factor may have more weight on a vocabulary test, less weight on a verbal analogy test, and very little weight on a mathematical reasoning test. Correlations of tests among themselves are the result of their loading by the group factor.

American psychologists T. L. Killy and L. L. Thurston , continuing the work of the factor-analytical direction, they took up the problems of group factors. Their main works appeared in the 1920s and 1930s.

Thurston, based on numerous studies, identified twelve factors, which he designated as "primary intelligence". Among them are the following: verbal understanding, fluency of speech, numerical factor, spatial factor, associative memory, speed of perception, induction (logical thinking), etc. Further research led to an increase in factors. The number of cognitive factors described to date is one hundred and twenty.

On the basis of factor studies, multifactorial batteries of ability tests were created, which made it possible to measure the individual level of each of the abilities. The most famous among them - General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB), which includes aptitude tests for specific professions.

The modern understanding of factor analysis introduces some changes in its interpretation, which was in the 1920-1940s. Factor analysis is the highest level of linear correlations. But linear correlations cannot be considered a universal form of expression of the mathematical connection between mental processes. Therefore, the absence of linear correlations cannot be interpreted as the absence of a connection at all, the same applies to low correlation coefficients. Therefore, factor analysis and the facts obtained through this analysis do not always correctly reflect the dependencies between mental processes.

But, perhaps, the main thing that raises doubts is the understanding of the so-called special abilities. These abilities are interpreted not as individual characteristics that have arisen as a result of the influence of the requirements of society on the individual, but as features that are inherent in this individual psyche. This interpretation creates a lot of logical difficulties. In fact, how did the modern individual suddenly develop and manifest such abilities that previous generations had no idea about? One cannot think that the psyche hides abilities suitable for all future social requirements. But the technique of factor analysis takes these abilities for granted; in reality, they are mental formations that are in dynamics.

The foregoing convinces us that the possibilities of factor analysis should be treated with great caution and that this analysis should not be considered a universal tool for studying the psyche.

Along with tests of intelligence, special and complex abilities, another type of tests has arisen that are widely used in educational institutions - achievement tests. Unlike intelligence tests, they reflect not so much the influence of diverse accumulated experience as the influence of special training programs on the effectiveness of solving test tasks. The history of the development of these tests can be traced from the moment when the Boston School changed the oral form of examinations to written ones (1845). In America, achievement tests have been used in the selection of employees for public service since 1872, and since 1883 their use has become regular. The most significant development of elements of the achievement test construction technique was carried out during the First World War and immediately after it. Achievement tests belong to the most numerous group of diagnostic methods. One of the most famous and widely used achievement tests so far is Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), first published in 1923. With its help, the level of education in different classes of secondary educational institutions is assessed. A significant number of tests of special abilities and achievements were created within the framework of psychotechnics under the influence of practical requests from industry and the economy. Further development of achievement tests led to the appearance in the middle of the 20th century. criteria-based tests.

To diagnose the success of teaching at school, special methods are being developed, which are called by different authors tests of educational achievements, success tests, didactic tests, and even teacher tests (the latter may also mean tests designed to diagnose the professional qualities of teachers, or poorly formalized diagnostic tools that can be used teacher, such as observation, conversation, etc.). As noted by the American psychologist A. Anas-tazi, this type of test ranks first in terms of number.

Achievement tests are designed to assess the success of mastering specific knowledge and even individual sections of academic disciplines, and are a more objective indicator of a student's learning than a mark. The latter often becomes not only an assessment of the student's knowledge, but also an instrument of influence on him, it can express the teacher's attitude to the degree of his discipline, organization, behavior, etc. Achievement tests are devoid of these shortcomings, of course, provided that they are correctly compiled and applied.

Achievement tests are different from actual psychological tests (ability, intelligence). Their difference from ability tests is, firstly, that they are used to study the success of mastering a specific, limited educational material, for example, the section of mathematics "Stereometry" or an English course. The formation of abilities (for example, spatial ones) will also be influenced by training, but it is not the only factor determining the level of their development. Therefore, when diagnosing abilities, it is difficult to find an unambiguous explanation for the high or low degree of their development in a schoolchild. Secondly, the difference between tests is determined by the purposes of their application. Ability tests are mainly aimed at identifying the prerequisites for certain types of activity and claim to predict the choice for the individual of the most suitable profession or training profile. Achievement tests are used to assess the success of mastering specific knowledge, in order to determine the effectiveness of programs, textbooks and teaching methods, the characteristics of the work of individual teachers, teaching teams, i.e. they diagnose past experience, the result of mastering certain disciplines or their sections. Although it is impossible to deny the fact that achievement tests can also, to a certain extent, predict the pace of student advancement in a particular academic discipline, since the high or low level of knowledge acquisition at the time of testing cannot but affect the further learning process. Pointing out the difference in the types of tests discussed, A. Anastasi notes that it comes out most prominently in assessing their validity: "The best way to evaluate ability tests is to carry out predictive criterion-based validation, while achievement tests are mainly evaluated in terms of content validity. "(A. Anastazi, 1982. T. 2. S. 37). Achievement tests also differ from intelligence tests. The latter are not aimed at diagnosing specific knowledge or facts, but require the student to be able to perform certain mental actions with concepts (even educational ones), such as drawing analogies, classifications, generalizations, etc. This is reflected and in the formulation of specific tasks for tests of both types.

Along with achievement tests designed to assess the assimilation of knowledge in specific disciplines or their cycles, more widely oriented tests are being developed in psychology. These are, for example, tests for assessing individual skills required by a student at different stages of learning, such as some general principles for solving mathematical problems. tasks, analysis of literary texts, etc. Tests for studying skills that can be useful in mastering a number of disciplines, such as skills in working with a textbook, mathematical tables, geographical maps, encyclopedias and dictionaries, are even more widely oriented. And finally, there are tests aimed at assessing the impact of training on the formation of logical thinking, the ability to reason, draw conclusions based on the analysis of a certain range of data, etc. These tests are closest in content to intelligence tests and highly correlate with the latter. Since achievement tests are designed to assess the effectiveness of teaching in specific subjects, the teacher should become an obligatory participant in the formulation of individual tasks. The psychologist, on the other hand, is obliged to ensure that all the formal procedures required to create a reliable and valid tool with which to diagnose and make comparisons on the studied qualities of individual students or their groups (classes, schools, regions, etc.) can be observed.

Literacy: Finding misspelled words. 8. Language: correct use of capital letters, forms of verbs and pronouns, correctly build sentences, follow the rules of punctuation, etc. 9. Social sciences: tasks are required based on knowledge from the field of history, economics, politics, sociology, etc. 10. Natural sciences: contains tasks that reveal knowledge of some methods and terms from the field of physics and biology. 11. Listening comprehension: you need to listen to the text and answer a series of questions.

In 1973, the SAT was standardized on a national sample of students in grades 1 through 9.

I. ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

I.1 Diagnostics of educational achievements

I.2 Proficiency tests

CONCLUSION

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

Testing (English test - test, verification) is an experimental method of psychodiagnostics used in empirical sociological research, as well as a method for measuring and evaluating various psychological qualities and states of an individual.

Achievement tests do not belong to a number of psychological ones. However, the development of psychological tests largely influenced the development of tools for assessing knowledge and skills. Many prominent psychologists had a hand in their creation. Therefore, psychodiagnostics does not ignore achievement tests, the main consumer of which has been and remains the education sector.

E. Trondike, who published the book "Educational Psychology" in 1903, was recognized about measurements in education in the USA. The publication of this book marked the emergence of a new field - educational psychology. E. Trondijk discusses the principles of constructing tests and applying statistical methods in the book "Introduction to the theory of the theory of mental and social measurements." Then, handwriting and writing assessment scales, Stone's Standard Tests and S.A.'s Series of Arithmetic Tests appear one after another. Curtis. The rapid development of tests is facilitated by the influx of immigrants into the United States, which led to an increase in enrollment. The need for skilled workers also increased, which required the development of a methodology for assessing the quality of their training. In 1947, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) was created, eventually taking responsibility for all testing programs for universities, vocational schools, government agencies and other organizations.

In pre-revolutionary Russia, since the beginning of the 20th century, psychological tests have been used and developed for the needs of education. In 1936 in Soviet psychology, under the influence of ideological attitudes, a ban is imposed on the use of tests. The revival of research occurs only in 1960.

Achievement tests are used not only in the field of education, but also in the selection of applicants for work in industry and government agencies. In the Chinese Empire, systematic civil service examinations were introduced around 150 BC. in European countries, the selection of government employees on the basis of examinations was introduced at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. The United States Civil Service Commission approved compulsory competitive examinations in 1883. Test writing methods developed before and during World War I were introduced into the US Civil Service examination program in 1922.

Currently, achievement tests in terms of number occupy the first place among diagnostic methods.

Thus, we see that the relevance of diagnostics of achievements only increases with time. What was the main reason I chose the topic of my test work "Achievement tests, their scope."

The purpose of the work is to identify the main functions of achievement tests and to determine the areas of their application.

I. ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

The achievement test is a group of psychodiagnostic methods aimed at assessing the achieved level of development of skills and knowledge.

There are 2 groups of achievement tests:

1. Learning success tests (used in the education system)

2. Tests of professional achievements (tests for diagnosing special knowledge and labor skills necessary to perform professional and labor activities).

The achievement test is the opposite of the ability test. Differences: Between these tests there is a difference in the degree of uniformity of the previous experience, which is diagnosed. Whereas an aptitude test reflects the impact of a student's cumulative, varied experience, an achievement test reflects an impact relative to a standard course of study.

Purpose of using aptitude tests and achievement tests:

ability tests - to predict the difference in the success of an activity

Achievement tests - make the final assessment of knowledge and skills upon completion of training.

Neither aptitude tests nor achievement tests diagnose abilities, skills, giftedness, but only the success of a previous achievement. There is an assessment of what a person has learned.

Achievement test classification

Broadly oriented - to assess knowledge and skills, compliance with the main learning objectives (designed for a long time). For example: achievement tests for understanding scientific principles.

Highly specialized - the assimilation of individual principles, individual or academic subjects. For example: mastering a topic in mathematics - a section on prime numbers - how this section is learned.

I. 1 Diagnostics of educational achievements

psychodiagnostics test achievement ability

To diagnose learning success, special methods are being developed, which are called learning achievement tests, success tests, didactic tests, and even teacher tests (the latter may also mean tests designed to diagnose the professional qualities of teachers). According to A. Anastazi, this type of tests ranks first in terms of number.

The following definition of achievement tests is found in the literature.

Tests are fairly brief, standardized or non-standardized tests, tests that allow teachers and students to evaluate the effectiveness of students' cognitive activity in relatively short periods of time, i.e. assess the degree and quality of each student's achievement of learning goals (learning goals).

One of the important advantages of achievement tests over teacher assessment is their objectivity and impartiality. Since, often, the teacher's assessment also acts as a method of influence, reflecting the attitude of the teacher to the personality of the student.

The convenience of achievement tests is that they are very compact and suitable for assessing the achievements of large groups.

Achievement tests in specific subjects (achievement in reading and mathematics) are focused on assessing the assimilation of curriculum elements, specific topics, and the level of skills (for example, numeracy).

These tests perform several functions:

act as a means of assessing knowledge,

determine the readiness of the child for schooling,

identify learning deficiencies

provide direction for future learning

Provide student motivation

help to tailor learning to the needs of the individual,

provide information about the level of knowledge acquired by students.

Achievement tests also differ from intelligence tests. The latter are not aimed at diagnosing specific knowledge or facts, but require the student to be able to perform certain mental actions with concepts (even educational ones), such as drawing analogies, classifications, generalizations, etc. This is reflected and in the formulation of specific tasks for tests of both types.

Individual achievement tests can be combined into batteries, which allows you to get profiles of learning success indicators in different school subjects. As a rule, test batteries are designed for different educational and age levels and do not always give results that can be compared with each other to get a holistic picture of learning success from class to class. Along with them, batteries have been created that allow you to receive such data. These are, for example, tests of basic skills (Iowa) and academic success, achievement tests and tests of learning skills at Stanford University, etc.

In the United States, achievement tests have become very widespread and are used not only at school, but also in preschool institutions and for samples of adults (for example, to determine the level of literacy of certain segments of the population).

I.2 Professional achievement tests

Professional achievement tests are used to evaluate the effectiveness of professional training or professional training. To select people for the most responsible positions - professional selection. It is used to assess the skill level of employees when moving to another position. The goal is to assess the level of training in professional knowledge and skills.

There are 3 forms of professional achievement tests:

1. Execution tests. Performing a series of tasks that reveal mastery of basic skills or actions. Those mechanisms, equipment, tools that are used in labor activity or modeling of individual elements of professional activity, the ability to reproduce individual operations are used.

2. Written achievement tests. They are used where it is required to find out how much a person owns special knowledge. Assignments on forms. Performed in writing with a specific form of answers.

3. Oral tests of professional achievements. During the First World War, performance tests were used to select personnel. A series of questions that elicit specialized knowledge. Diagnosis in the form of an interview. Conducted individually. Convenient to use. No need to print. The subject must answer in the given form.

Professional achievement tests are created in the same way as achievement tests. A large number of tasks are created, obviously several times more. They check. Three groups of workers are being tested:

1. highly qualified experts

2. beginners

3. representatives of related professions.

The task is included in the test if:

the task was completed by the majority of experts (this is a sign of validity)

task completed by a smaller percentage of beginners (approximately 60-70%)