Assessing Reading: Research into the assessment of reading

In this chapter, I present a summary of the main research findings that have focused on language tests, and the variables that might affect their construction or interpretation. Many studies have used language tests as their elicitation instrument, as discussed in Chapter 1. Some of these have already been reviewed in Chapter 2, and inevitably, there will be a degree of overlap between that chapter and the current one. However, the main focus of this chapter is on the direct implications of language–testing research for test design and for the development of assessment procedures. Not surprisingly, research into assessment, rather than research using assessment tools, has focused upon assessment issues rather than sought directly to apply models of reading. Assessment, after all, has its own purposes and needs for research. This chapter will address the question: how do we know what affects the assessment of reading? I concentrate on variables with demonstrated relevance to assessing reading. One major area for language–testing research has been test methods: their validity, reliability and factors affecting their use. As this is such a large field, I shall present the main findings of relevance separately in Chapter 7, when I discuss testing techniques.