Creating Effective Achievement Tests

1. Creating Effective Achievement Tests moving beyond the publisher’s 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 >75% • Moderate: 25%< answered correctly <75% • Hard: answered correctly < 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