Practices of EFL Teachers in Constructing Teacher Made Tests

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the practices of EFL teachers in constructing teacher-made tests. It was conducted at six secondary schools in Debark, North Gondar Zone. Concurrent parallel mixed design in accordance with the pragmatism paradigm was employed. A questionnaire, semistructured interviews, nonparticipant observation and document analysis were used to collect the data. The questionnaire and semistructured interview data revealed that EFL teachers lacked training in developing teacher-made tests because practitioners were not aware of the woreda educational office; thus, the principals of the schools were exposed to bias. To this effect, teachers skipped crucial steps of test construction: the planning stage, designing stage and tryout stage. The data from nonparticipant observation and document analysis revealed that grammar and reading were exhaustively incorporated in the form of multiple choices. There were no critical thinking or problem-solving tasks in the test. Furthermore, archive analysis revealed that EFL teachers did not adhere to Bloom’s Taxonomy framework. Based on these findings, the study recommends that educational practitioners of zones and woredas prepare test development training and that school principals provide fair opportunities for all teachers. EFL teachers are expected to adhere to the planning, designing and try-out test construction steps.