Principles of assessment serve as a guidelines to ensure that a test is useful, appropriate, effective, and plausible.[1] This principles are crucial to be taken into consideration because assessment is an important aspect of educational process which determines the level of accomplishments of students.[2]
There are five general principles of assessment:[1][3]
This principle refers to the time and cost constraints during the construction and administration of an assessment instrument.[1] Meaning that the test should be economical to provide. The format of the test should be simple to understand. Moreover, solving a test should remain within suitable time. It is generally simple to administer. Its assessment procedure should be particular and time-efficient.[4]
The principle of reliability refers to the stability of scores over time and different raters. There are four types of reliability: student-related which can be personal problems, sickness, or fatigue, rater-related which includes bias and subjectivity, test administration-related which is the conditions of test taking process, test-related which is basically related to the nature of a test.[5][1][4]
Validity refers to the tests that measure what it claims to measure.[1][5]
The assessment instrument is authentic when it is contextualized, contains natural language and meaningful, relevant, and interesting topic, and replicates real world experiences.[1]
This principle refers to the consequence of an assessment on teaching and learning within classrooms.[1] Washback can be positive and negative. Positive washback refers to the desired effects of a test, while negative washback refers to the negative consequences of a test. In order to have positive washback, instructional planning can be used.[6]