Chapter 6: Completion and ShortAnswer Items

1
Chapter 6 Completion and Short-Answer Items

• Part II How to Develop, Administrate, and Score
  Written Tests

2
Skills to Learn From This Chapter

• Identify the advantages and limitations of
  short-answer items.
• Identify qualities desired in short-answer items.
• Evaluate short-answer items for these qualities.

3
What is the difference?

• The Italian artist who painted the ceiling of the
  Sistine Chapel is ___________ .
• Which Italian artist painted the ceiling of the
  Sistine Chapel?
• Answer Michelangelo

4
True or False

• Short-answer questions can measure procedural
  knowledge. T F
•  It is time consuming to create a short-answer
  items scoring plan. T F
•  It is relatively easy to construct short-answer
  items. T F

5
Advantages of Short-answer Items

• Short-answer items are easy to construct.
• Short-answer items require the student to supply
  the answer.
• Much short answer can be included in a test.

6
True or False

• One can design short-answer items to measure
  knowledge of concept. T F
• It is easy to create a score plan for
  short-answer item therefore, the short-answer
  items are not likely to be scored erroneously. T
  F

7
Limitations of Short-answer Items

• Short-answer items are generally limited to
  measuring recall of information
• Short-answer items are more likely to be scored
  erroneously than are the objectively scored
  formats.
• 6.1 Apply What You Are Learning (page 65)

8
Identify Qualities Desired in Short-answer Items

• Does this item measure the specified skill?
• Can you use the short-answer items to measure
  procedural knowledge? Why?
• Is the level of reading skill required by this
  item below the students ability?
• How would you explain this quality for
  short-answer items to a Cohort-I student?

9
Identify Qualities Desired in Short-answer Items

• Can this item be answered using one or two words
  or a short sentence?
• Why bother with one or two words or a short
  sentence with the short-answer items? 
• Will only a single or very homogeneous set of
  responses provide a correct response to the
  items?
• What is your comment on I designed the
  short-answer items and I know what the right
  answers are. It will be students mistake if they
  fail to supply or supply the wrong answers.

10
Identify Qualities Desired in Short-answer Items

• 6.2 Apply What You Are Learning (page 66)

11
Identify Qualities Desired in Short-answer Items

• Does the item use grammatical structure and
  vocabulary difference from that contained in the
  source of instruction?
• Whats wrong with selecting important sentences
  from a textbook or other source and replace a key
  word with a blank?
• Does the format of the item (and the test in
  general) allow for efficient scoring
• What can you do to make the scoring more
  efficient?

12
Identify Qualities Desired in Short-answer Items

• If the item requires a numerical response, does
  the question state the unit of measurement to
  used in the answer?
• What particular attention do you need to pay if
  the answers involve numbers?
• Does the blank represent a key word?
• What will be the best choice for the blank?
• 6.3 Apply What You Are Learning (page 67)

13
Identify Qualities Desired in Short-answer Items

• Are blanks placed at or near the end of the item?
• Why does the position of the blank matter? 
• Is the number of blanks sufficiently limited?
• What could happen if too many blanks are designed
  in a short-answer item? 
• Is the physical length of each blank the same?
• I need to provide more space to the last blank
  because it needs a longer word. T F

14
Practice Applying These Desired Qualities to
Short-answer Items (pages68-69).
In-class Exercise Design 2 completion items and
2 short-answer items, based on the content of
Chapter 6