Abstract:

This paper was written as a report to the British Council's English Teaching Advisory Committee, July 1983.

Despite current feelings among many that testing has come of age in CAI, there are several areas where we are still in need of better understanding. There are a number of testing techniques which can be effective if matched to our needs. One effective way to describe testing purposes and techniques is to describe the relationships between the population of all possible test items, the actual sample of this population to be used, and the learner's control of this sample. Only when correct principles of traditional testing are used, can we tap the usefulness of the computer's speed and memory to assist either the teacher or the learner.

Author: Alan Davies