Creating Effective Assessment Items

One of the most critical components of training is the assessment creation. The assessment test items created serve not only the purpose of monitoring the students grasping and understanding of the concepts,  but also of providing feedback to the instructor on the effectiveness of instructional activities.

 

Creating good assessment items is an integral part of the entire instructional sequence. In many cases, the grades from these assessments are considered the students final grades. Hence, it is vital to create well-planned assessment items that assess the students on the correct concepts and course objectives.

 

Here are some tips and tricks for improving the general quality of the assessment items.

 

You should:

• Ensure there are clear and specific instructions for answering the assessment items
• Ensure that an assessment item is an appropriate measure of a learning objective
• Express items as clearly, precisely and simply as possible
• Ensure that the wording of one assessment item does not give away the answers to another
• Prepare more assessment items than required, so that ineffective items can be deleted after review
• Include a variety of assessment item formats (Multiple choice, match the following, sequencing) in the question bank
• Order the assessment items from the least to most difficult, if feasible
• Review the assessment items to identify and correct any points of confusion or grammatical errors
• Ensure that each assessment item has at least one correct answer, which is not ambiguous
• Write assessment items, whose difficultly level matches the difficulty level of the objectives being tested on
• Ensure that the options in a multiple choice item are parallel and similar in length

However, you should not:

 

• Create assessment items that do not test the students on a learning objective
• Create assessment items that focus on insignificant issues
• Create assessment items that promote memorization of facts and trivial details
• Create assessment items that are meant only for a specific set of students
• Make assessment test items that are complicated or tricky
• Include more assessment items than what can be answered in a given period of time **
• Use jargon or a complete duplication of the textbook language
• Use options such as “All of the above” and “None of the above” in a multiple choice assessment item
• Use options such as “All of the above” and “None of the above”

** The average time taken to respond to a particular assessment item type is:

• True false                                  30 seconds
• Multiple-choice                          1 minute
• Sequencing                               1.5 minute
• Short Answer                             2 minutes
• Matching                                   30 seconds per response
• Short Essay                              10-15 minutes
• Extended Essay                        30 minutes
• Visual Image                             30 seconds per response

 

As an assessment item writer, you should:

• Have a basic knowledge and understanding of the content
• Be aware of the learning objectives
• Be aware of the instructional model being used
• Have an understanding of the target audience 

One of the most commonly used assessment item is the multiple-choice question.

 

A multiple-choice assessment item is generally divided into four parts:

·         Goal

·         Stem

·         Responses/options

·         Overall test construction

 

The goal of the assessment items should:

·         Measure the required skill

·         Focus on important subject area content

·         Contain accurate information

·         Be clear and concise

·         Be bias free

 

The stem of the assessment item should:

·         Provide sufficient information, and avoid extra information

·         Be grammatically correct

·         Avoid giveaway clues

·         Avoid negatives

·         Avoid second person references

 

The responses of the assessment item should:

·         Be grammatically consistent with the stem

·         Be of approximately the same length

·         Be structurally parallel

·         Avoid “All of the above” and “None of the above” options

·         Avoid obvious distracters

 

The tests construction of the assessment items should:

·         Avoid similar items

·         Avoid items that help answer other items