Explaining My Test Items and Essay Items

In order to assess students efficiently, the assessment must include various types of testing so that students have the opportunity to exercise their knowledge through various activities, rather than using only one type of testing which can become repetitive to the students and may not assess students accurately. By implementing different forms of written tests, for example, a student can demonstrate his or her strengths and give the teacher an idea of which testing items better suits the students’ learning abilities .

For my testing items, I decided to use matching items, true or false items, multiple choice items and completion items, as well as essay items. By implementing different types of activities I am able to provide the students a variety of testing items equally and not focus on only one form of testing which can provide inaccurate results of a student’s academic ability and knowledge retention. One of the main reasons why the Standardized Test, for example, is considered such an inefficient method to test our students is because it is composed of little variety in activities. It is mostly focused on multiple choice questions, which, for many students, it might not do justice to their abilities or the knowledge they possess regarding the topic or subject at hand (“Fairtest,” 2007).

I chose to implement matching items because, based on my topic, I can successfully make all “options plausible distractors for each description to ensure homogeneity of lists” (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2010).By writing the Spanish words in column A, for example, and the translation of those words in English  in column B I can ensure to base each option on facts  so that no ambiguity can arise and students are not confused with the options provided. Each item does not include opinions or ideas; each is based on matching the word in column A with its English translation in column B, thus allowing the student to think and remember that there is only one correct answer per item. In addition, by keeping each question or item short and with minimal amount of words, students can easily focus on the activity and not risk losing their attention and effort on reading long sentences that can cause a student to become frustrated and guess the answers in order to finish the activity quickly so that he or she is free to move on to the next activity.  

Another type of testing item I implement were multiple choice items. Unlike the Standardized Test, the key is to ask a few to a couple of questions of multiple choice only and not base almost all or the entire test on these types of items. The topic of Spanish language has to be broken down into sections in order to effectively and efficiently teach the students the given information; thus assessing students’ knowledge on this topic through multiple choice only would not provide the best results in terms of improving the knowledge on the subject. Therefore, implementing just a few multiple choice questions, however, can provide an effective activity to exercise a student’s knowledge on the topic at hand. Consequently, I implemented multiple choice items that include a specific question or a scenario regarding a particular topic. Because each item has only one right answer, the options include “two to four distractions plus one correct answer,” hence, this method helps to “optimize testing for knowledge rather than encouraging guessing” (Pg. 148).   

I also implemented completion items. Each item I presented  requires students to fill in only one blank space, which allows every answer to be a “brief and definite statement” and it allows key words of the sentence to remain in place so that key elements are not omitted and “the sense of the content is not impaired” (Pg. 151). Because the topic is Spanish for a beginner’s level class, asking students to provide an answer that requires more than two words in a language they are just beginning to learn can contradict the learning objective and jeopardize the learning outcome. By focusing on only one blank, the student is able to give his or her attention to answering only one item at a time.  

I also implemented a true-or-false test item. With the Spanish language, or any other language for that matter, the function or meaning of a certain word is factual; therefore, I used this aspect of factual information to create a true or false activity. Each true and false item in the activity was created in “short statements that eliminates extraneous material” (Pg. 135). Each items is written in short sentences rather than phrases that may include unnecessary amount of words that can confuse the student and provide unclear context of the question. The answers to this activity are in no particular order thus eliminating predictability of answers .

Lastly, I implemented one essay item for each outcome. Each essay item focuses on one specific idea and asks the student to provide specific answers. The essay items include a clear task that the student must perform and it requires the student to use critical thinking as well as implement his or her own creativity to complete the essay. Therefore, each essay item will ask the student to apply their own logic and knowledge, thus requiring each student to implement their mental process to develop a cohesive answer to the question at hand. Each essay item includes a “reasonable time or page limit,” so the student has an established criteria that he or she must meet.

 

 

 

 

References

Fairtest. (2007, August 20). Retrieved from http://www.fairtest.org/facts/howharm.htm

Kubiszyn, T., & Borich, G. D. (2010). Educational testing and measurement, classroom application and               practice. (p. 495). Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons Inc.

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