Creating Effective Achievement Tests

1
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• moving beyond the publishers test bank

2
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• 4 steps of test construction
• Clarify the learning goals.
• Develop a test blueprint.
• Obtain relevant test item pools.
• Synthesize the test.

3
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• Clarify the learning goals.
• Return to the unit plan.
• Rank the objectives by their relative importance.
• Weight each objective as a percentage of the
  learning goal.

4
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• Develop a test blueprint.
• Administration time
• Item formats
• Number of items
• Difficulty of items
• Easy answered correctly gt75
• Moderate 25lt answered correctly lt75
• Hard answered correctly lt 25

5
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• Develop a test blueprint.
• Approximation of total points
• Number of points for each objective
• Method of scoring
• Test outline

6
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• Obtain relevant test item pools
• Write items well in advance of the test date.
• Build a set of questions for each objective.
• Have more questions for each objective than you
  intend to use on the test.
• Create multiple formats (i.e. MC, essay, SA,
  matching, oral response, performance,
  demonstrations, portfolio, etc.)
• File the questions in an orderly and manageable
  way (including the directions for how to score
  each item).

7
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• Obtain relevant test item pools
• Make certain that the question can be matched to
  an objective and that it meets the stated
  learning level.
• Write items at the appropriate reading level.
• Do not give clues to the answer in the question
• Write each item so that the answer is one that
  most experts would agree upon.

8
Creating Effective Achievement Tests

• Synthesize the test
• Item interaction
• Sequencing Items
• Directions