Exploring the Factors Affecting Test Effectiveness in the Classroom

This study aims to explore the factors affecting test effectiveness in the classroom. Tests are powerful tools for assessing students’ learning achievement and play a vital role in their growth. Tests help students to organize their knowledge and move forward. Teachers’ knowledge, language differences, implicit bias, low motivation, less exercise, ambiguity, and validity are the factors that affect test effectiveness. Test validity is a very common concern among test makers. An invalid test increases students’ fear and anxiety and affects the learning outcomes. The factor that causes the invalidity of the test is the lack of information about making a valid test. This is qualitative research, and the participants of this study were 30 teachers and 10 students from the English department of Kabul Education University. The results of the study indicate that most tests developed by lecturers are not valid; the purpose for which the tests are designed is not clear most of the time. The lecturers do not know the specific abilities of the students they want to measure. This study's result is significant for teachers, lecturers, students, and all the parties involved in the teaching-learning process. If enough attention is paid to the factors affecting test effectiveness and valid tests are constructed, students will get rid of anxiety, and learning will be more productive.