The Nature of Test Validity

Abstract

By the end of the twentieth century Cambridge ESOL was addressing the reliability as well as the more traditional validity aspects of its examinations. Their earlier concern with construct validity was now matched by an equal regard for reliability, at least from the 1980s, in the UK. In the wider testing world, exam providers such as TOEFL had also begun to acknowledge the legitimacy of the socio-cognitive elements of validity and devoted the attention to them that they had always paid to the reliability aspect. The commitment to continually improve validity exhibited by Cambridge ESOI. and Educational Testing Service (ETS) TOEFL examinations is encouraging, but the picture is very different for many other examining boards.