Assessment task analysis: review of foreign approaches

The assessment task is one of the key factors in achieving an accurate, reliable and valid assessment. The effectiveness of assessment is directly dependent on the characteristics of the task and its compliance with the requirements. The analysis of foreign theoretical sources made it possible to identify various analytical procedures used by researchers and practitioners to identify certain aspects of the assessment task. At the same time, we draw attention to the lack of their systematization. This narrows the possibilities of identifying the qualitative parameters of the assessment task, which results in a decrease in the assessment reliability. The purpose of the study is to identify approaches to the analysis of the assessment task proposed by foreign researchers and to streamline them based on the differentiation of the focus of the analysis. The study was carried out by continuous search of theoretical sources in international scientific databases of full-text publications based on thematic keywords. As a result, 18 publications were selected, which reflect different analytical procedures used to determine the quality of the assessment task as a didactic category. The study of publications allowed to identify the following approaches: integrative, authentic, didactic, cognitive, linguistic and an approach based on the theory of educational assessment. Each approach reflects specific parameters related directly to operations, activities, characteristics, etc., necessary for the effective assessment procedure. Approaches to task analysis are focused on identifying the internal parameters of the task (compliance with the requirements of real life situations; consistency with the psychological and pedagogical patterns of organizing educational activities; taking into account language characteristics in task instructions; correlation of cognitive operations necessary to complete the task with the requirements of complexity, accessibility, expediency, etc.; compliance with the requirements of valid, reliable and fair assessment activities), and its potential in the context of the educational process as a means of influencing the student and the educational process itself. The systematization of the approaches to the assessment task becomes a factor in the development of practical tools that ensure quality of the assessment task for the effective organization of the educational process.