Tips for Creating a Test
Make certain students understand what will be assessed before you assess.
Plan the test while you plan the unit.
Your assessment should go beyond recalling and explaining (Bloom’s Taxonomy)
A test should:
- be long enough to be valid and reliable, but short enough to complete in the allotted time
- increase in difficulty from beginning to end
- be easy to read; white space should be considered
- use vocabulary in both the question and answer(s) that the students are familiar with
- cluster all items of one type
- provide clear, precise, written directions; separate the directions from the content of the test
OBJECTIVE TESTS: the student must identify accurate information
…require students to select the correct response from several alternatives or supply a word or short phrase to answer the question. An answer key is needed for assessment.
True-False:
a problem constructing this type of test is that it’s easy to write poorly worded questions. (Ex.- George Washington was a great president) part true, part opinion. Make sure the directions tell the student to write the words true or false or circle T or F. Don’t let them write T or F – there is too much similarity in the lettering. Don’t use negative statements: None of the items were not needed for the experiment.
Matching:
These tests only measure factual information; they are easy to construct. Do not ask the students to draw lines to match the items; require letter answers. If there are a lot of items (~30), and you have students with special needs, you might split them up in clusters with different sets of word banks for each section. Provide an unequal amount of answers. Directions should be clearly stating if items can be used more than once. The entire matching section should be on one page.
Multiple Choice:
This strategy is easy to grade, but hard to write good questions with worthy answers. Italicizing, boldfacing, and/or underlining specific words is helpful. The “stem” should include as much of the item as possible. All choices for answers should be grammatically consistent with the stem.
Completion (fill in the blanks)
The wording can lead to ambiguity. (Ex.- George Washington was born ______.) A word bank can help eliminate ambiguity but can water-down your level of difficulty. Test items of this nature work best if the answer space is toward the end of the sentence: The first African-American president of the United States was _______________________.
SUBJECTIVE TESTS: the student must create the accurate information
…require students to write and present an original answer. Include short-answer essay, extended-response essay, problem solving, and performance tasks. Rubrics are needed for the assessment.
Essays:
Be sure the prompt has enough structure to guide the writing. No- discuss the educational value of children’s TV programming. Yes- Write a 6-paragraph essay supporting the educational value of children’s TV programming. Physical, emotional, cognitive, and social development must be addressed. If you can provide a choice between 2 or 3 prompts, if gives the students more ownership.
Performance/Demonstration:
These are good when you would like to include the student in creating the actual assessment.