Language testing and assessment (Part 2)

views in language testing on validity, and language testers have come to accept that there is no one single answer to the question ‘What does our test measure?’ or ‘Does this test measure what it is supposed to measure?’. Messick argues that the question should be rephrased along the lines of: ‘What is the evidence that supports particular interpretations and uses of scores on this test?’.Validity is not a characteristic of a test, but a feature of the inferences made on the basis of test scores and the uses to which a test is put. One validates not a test, but ‘a principle for making inferences’ (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955:297).This concern with score interpretations and uses necessarily raises the issue of test consequences, and in educational measurement, as well as in language testing specifically, debates continue about the legitimacy of incorporating test consequences into validation. Whether test developers can be held responsible for test use and misuse is controversial, especially in light of what we increasingly know about issues like test washback (see Part One of this review).A new term has been invented – ‘consequential validity’ – but it is far from clear whether this is a legitimate area of concern or a political posture. Messick (1989:20) presents what he calls a ‘progressive matrix’ (see Figure 1), where the columns represent the outcomes of testing and the rows represent the types of arguments that should be used to justify testing outcomes. Each of the cells contains ‘construct validity’, but new facets are added as one goes through the matrix from top left to bottom right.