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Writing Effective Tests: A Guide for Teachers
Creating effective tests is an essential task for all classroom teachers. While it is a task that every teacher undertakes year after year, how can you be sure you are making the best tests possible? Follow these suggestions when creating your next classroom test.
Writing Effective Tests: A Guide for Teachers
The Importance of Good Tests
A well-written test allows teachers to accurately and consistently measure students’ mastery of specific content taught in class. Results of well-written tests also allow teachers to measure, to some degree, how effective their instruction has been.
A well-written test allows teachers to accurately and consistently measure students’ mastery of specific content taught in class. Results of well-written tests also allow teachers to measure, to some degree, how effective their instruction has been.
Conversely, poorly designed tests lead to inaccurate measurements of learning and provide false information regarding student performance and effectiveness of instruction. They can also result in unintended measurements of skills not taught.
Writing Better Tests
There are a number of steps you can take to improve the quality of the tests you write.
There are a number of steps you can take to improve the quality of the tests you write.
Match Instructional Objectives and Teacher Notes to the Test
When creating your test items, refer back to your instructional objectives for the content and skills you want to assess. Use lesson plans and teacher notes to ensure your test items accurately reflect content that was learned in class. Choose the most important objectives to assess and use these as the outline for your test.
When creating your test items, refer back to your instructional objectives for the content and skills you want to assess. Use lesson plans and teacher notes to ensure your test items accurately reflect content that was learned in class. Choose the most important objectives to assess and use these as the outline for your test.
Match the Question Type to the Level of Assessment Desired
Choose the type of questions to include carefully. Multiple choice and matching questions offer the most flexibility in terms of content that can be covered and thinking skills that can be assessed. True/false are usually limited to fact recall. Try to balance the number of question types and limit their number to no more than three types on one test for middle school and high school students.
Choose the type of questions to include carefully. Multiple choice and matching questions offer the most flexibility in terms of content that can be covered and thinking skills that can be assessed. True/false are usually limited to fact recall. Try to balance the number of question types and limit their number to no more than three types on one test for middle school and high school students.
Construct Questions Carefully
It is crucial to carefully consider the wording of each question and answer on the test. The stem (or question portion) of the test item should be worded using straightforward language. Careful attention should also be given to writing the correct and incorrect answers.
It is crucial to carefully consider the wording of each question and answer on the test. The stem (or question portion) of the test item should be worded using straightforward language. Careful attention should also be given to writing the correct and incorrect answers.
When constructing selected response questions for multiple choice, true/false, matching, and fill-in-the-blank questions, use the following guidelines.
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Guideline
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Reason
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Avoid confusing students with too many negatives in a question. (e.g., What might not have happened had the Allies not won the war?)
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Unless they appear on a grammar or logic test, these items rarely test content knowledge. They also may skew the test unfairly toward English proficient speakers and highly proficient readers.
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Avoid using incomplete sentences.
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This type of question may provide grammatical clues to the correct answer.
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Avoid using “all of the above” as a choice.
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Students can easily eliminate this answer by identifying just one incorrect answer.
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Write all answer choices to be approximately the same length.
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The correct answer is often written as the longest option.
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Adjust the level of the question to the level of thinking required to answer it. For example, for a simple memorization task:
In what year was the Declaration of Independence signed? a) 1770 b) 1876 c) 1776 d) 1786 Or for a task that requires higher order thinking skills:
What later historical events best affirm the ideas set forth in the Declaration of Independence? a) Emancipation Declaration, 19th Amendment b) Eminent Domain, Manifest Destiny c) Civil War, World War I |
You can measure higher order thinking skills by the way you word a question.
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Proofread all items before copying the test.
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Typographical errors are more often made in incorrect answers and may be apparent to test-wise students.
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Evaluating the Test
Once scored, spend some time reviewing the test and observing error patterns that may be present. Were there any questions that every student got wrong? If so, can you deduce whether it was due to poorly constructed test item or to instruction? If it was poorly written, you may want to consider canceling it out and recalibrating the test. If students simply didn’t understand the concept, you now know what needs to be retaught.
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