ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING – I

UNIT – 3
TEACHER MADE ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

Improving essay type questions:

Essay type questions in a written test (whether teacher-made or standardised) are
characterised by them from the students to respond by providing quite lengthy, descriptive,
detailed and elaborate answers. The answers given by the students are so lengthy and
descriptive that these might look like essays on the related subjects. Students are liberty to
respond to the presented questions in a way they prefer. An essay item must contain explicitly
defined problems. It must contain such problems whose answers are not very wide. Essay items
must have clear-cut directions or instructions for the examinees. Sufficient time should be
allowed in the construction of the essay items.
The questions such as following may be cited as illustrations for the setting of such essay type
questions:
 Describe the possible causes for the outcome of the Indian independence war of 1857.
 What are chemical and physical change? Discuss with illustrations.
 How do we learn? Discuss in the light of the theories and principles of learning.

Different types of objective tests:

Thus, the items of an achievement test may be divided into two major categories:
(i) Objective items, and
(ii) Essay items.
According to Linn and Miller (2005), the major categories of objective test items or essay items
may be further subdivided into the following basic types of test items and assessment tasks:
 Supply Type
 Selection Type
(i) Supply type items: These items require student to supply the answer. This is also known as
simple recall items. In such items, the teacher asks a short question expecting a quick one-word
answer or completion of a statement. Supply type items are further classified into very short
answer type and completion type. Let us understand both types of supply type items.
 Short Answer (we also call these very short answer type item)
 Completion or fill-in type item.
Very short answer type items and the completion type items are supply type test items that can
be answered by a word, phrase, number, or symbol. They are essentially the same, differing
only in the method of presenting the problem. The very short answer item uses a direct question,
whereas the completion item consists of an incomplete statement.
Examples:
Very short answer type item:
What is the composition of water?....................... (Answer: H2O)
Completion type items:
The name of the person who invented telephone is _______. (Answer:
Alexander Graham Bell)
The supply type items are suitable for measuring a wide variety of relatively
simple learning outcomes. For Example:

To measure knowledge of terminology:

Example: Mass movement of rocks, debris or earth down a slope is

called …………………. (Answer: landslides)

Knowledge of specific facts:

Example: President of India is elected for a term of …………………

years. (Answer: Five

Simple interpretation of data:

Example: In the number 2250, what place value

does the 5 represent? (Answer: 50)

Ability to solve numerical problem:

Example: The rate of bananas is 60 Rupees per dozen. How many

Rupees do you need to buy 3 bananas? (Answer: 15 Rupees)
 Do not take statements directly from textbooks to use as a basis for
supply type item.
 Blanks for answers should be equal in length.
 A large number of blanks must be avoided in completion type items.
 Clues which give a direct hint to the correct answer must be avoided.
(ii) Selection type items: Another important type of objective items is the selection type of
items where the student is required to select the correct answer from among a few given
answers. Selection type items are considered as carrying the quality of objectivity. Scoring to
such type items are considered easy and objective. Selection type items are further divided into
the following:
(a) Alternative response type items
(b) Matching type items (c) Multiple choice type items
a) Alternative Response Items: The alternative response item consists of a declarative
statement that the student is asked to mark true or false, yes or no, right or wrong, fact or
opinion, correct or incorrect, agree or disagree or the like. In each case, there are only two
possible answers and the student has to select one answer out of the given two alternatives,
rather than supplying the answer.
Example: The capital of India is New Delhi. (True/False) (Answer: True)
b) Matching Items: In a matching item there are two columns – right and left, and the items
on the left column are to be matched with the items on the right column. The left column is
called as ‘premises and the right column is called as ‘responses. This can be marked as
‘Column-A’ and ‘Column-B’. In this type of item, it is always suggested that the responses in
Column-B are comparatively more than the premises.
Example 1: In the left – hand column the names of some countries have been given and in the
right-hand column the names of some capitals have been given. Match name of the country
with its capital:
Column-A Column-B
1. India a. Islamabad
2. France b. Baghdad
3. Pakistan c. Kabul
4. Afghanistan d. New Delhi
5. Iraq e. Paris
f. Colombo
(Answer: 1-d, 2-e, 3-a, 4-c, 5-b)
c) Multiple Choice Items: It is the most popular and common form of objective type items
and commonly called as multiple-choice questions (MCQ). According to Linn and Miller
(2005), multiple choice item can effectively measure many of the simple learning outcomes
measured by short answer item, true-false item and matching type item. In addition, it can
measure a variety of complex outcomes in the knowledge, understanding, and application
areas. Multiple choice questions are well known for their extensive use in achievement testing.
Apart from using MCQs in schools for knowing achievement of students, they can also be used
in various public examinations. Especially for recruiting the candidates for different vacancies
and for selecting candidates for admission to various academic programmes through entrance
examination. The nature of entrance examination that you have taken for admission to B.Ed. is
one of the appropriate examples of MCQ test.
A multiple-choice item consists of two parts – problem and suggested solutions. The problem
is put either in the form of a direct question or in the form of an incomplete statement and is
called stem or premise of the item. The suggested solutions are called alternatives or choices
or options. The student is asked to select the one correct or best alternative after reading the
item. The correct response or the best answer is called the keyed answer and the remaining
alternatives are known as distractors or foils.
Example: The most accurate measure of central tendency in a distribution is called –
(A) Mean (B) Median
(C) Mode (D) Standard Deviation
(Answer: (A) Mean)
While writing various types of selection type items for an objective type test, one should keep
the following points in mind:
In true-false/two alternative response items:
 Double negatives must be avoided.
 The statement must be either entirely true or entirely false.
 The statement must not be complex and indirect.
 The number of true statements and false statements should be approximately equal.
 True statements and false statements should be approximately equal in length.
In matching items:

Homogeneous content should be used in a single matching exercise.

An unequal number of responses and premises should be included and the student should be
instructed that one, more than one or no response may be used. All the items for one matching
type item must be placed on the same page.
In multiple choice items:

An item should contain only one correct or the best answer.

There should be no verbal association between the item and the correct answer.

The correct answer should appear in each of the alternative positions equal number of times
but in random order.

The length of the alternatives should be approximately equal.

Weak distracters must be avoided.

The stem should not be ambiguous and all the alternatives should be grammatically consistent
with the stem of the item.

Characteristics of Objective tests:

 The most important characteristics of an objective type tests is reliability, validity and
objectivity
  These tests are highly reliable and valid as they require a one-word answer thus
minimizing the subjective interference and judgement
 These tests are valid, reliable and prevents bluffing
 Aptitude for precise, pin-point, definite answer
 It consists of multiple-choice answers
 The main advantage of these tests can be scored easily and objectively as well as they
are quite cost-effective
 Evaluation is fair as answers don’t change form person to person
 Easy and consist scoring
 Avoids the influence of writing skills
 Time consuming and short period lot of question for answer

Advantages of Objective type tests:

 It can be scored objectivity and easily. The scoring will not vary from time-to-time
examiner to examiner. The mood of the examiner in no way affects scoring
 In this type, more extensive and representative sampling can be obtained. This reduces
the role of luck and cramming of expected question. As a result, there is a greater
reliability and better content validity. They can be made to cover more material than
traditional type
 It possesses economy of time, for it takes less time to answer than an essay test.
Comparatively many test items can be presented to student. It also saves, a lot of time
of the scorer
 Students like them very much, because there is no question as to the accuracy of marks
they receive
 It eliminates extraneous (irrelevant) factors such as speed of writing, fluency of
expression, literacy style, good hand writing neatness, etc
 They discourage cramming and encourage thinking observation and scrutiny
 It creates an intensive for pupils to building a broad base of knowledge, skills and
abilities. They are more educative for the students
 It measures the higher mental processes of understanding, application, analysis and
prediction

Disadvantages of Objective type tests:

o No depth of knowledge due to point to permit study
o Chance factor and guessing become a big platform
o Cheating factor is a big problem
o Imagination and reasoning power also fails down due to limited response
o Measurement of higher mental abilities is not possible
o New idea is totally distorted
o Capability and talents of students can’t be identified due to mechanical process od
students’ mind

Relating test items and Specific behavioural objectives:

Relating test items
 Items of a test are the questions or items relate to or based on the particular situation or
events going on in the student’s environment. These are application oriented and stimulate
thinking and reasoning of the students for applying the learned facts principles and concepts in
dealing with day-to-day situations or satisfying the curiously involved while encountering with
a new experience. This question may be framed in a variety of formats such as essay type, short
answer type, very short answer or objective type, depending upon the demands of the situation
and choice of the developer.
The nature of these situation-based items/questions may be clear through a few illustrations
given below:
Situation: In a visiting tour of coastal area, students observe that a hair clip of a fellow girl
student dropping into ocean gets immediately sunk into the water. How, the large ships
containing huge stuff of iron and steel remain afloat.
Questions set: Explain, in detail, why the small clip gets sunk while large ships remain afloat
by throwing light on the mechanism and principle involved in your explanation.

Specific behavioural objectives

1. Setting objectives
The first, and most important step, is to make one-self clear about the objectives for which
one is going to frame the test. In all instructions, the objectives of the test should be properly
decided in terms of specific objectives behavioural changes expected in the pupils as a result
of studying a particular unit or course of study.
2. Coverage of the syllabus or Contents
The contents which have to be covered in the test, are directly dependant upon what has
been taught by the teacher. The teacher should keep an outline of the learning experiences
given by him. Although, no major unit or subtopic of what has been taught should be left, yet
it is not essential at all to ask for each and every thing discussed by the teacher in the class. In
other words, a reasonable coverage of various aspects of the learning experiences given to the
students should be the goal.
3. Decision about the types of items or questions
Decision about the types of questions to be set in the test paper is also an essential aspect of
its construction. As pointed out earlier, all the three forms – Essay type, Short type and
Objective type, should find place in a good achievement test
4. Decision about the time
The total time given to the students for giving responses to the items of test, should also be
decided.
5. Preparation of the blue print
This is the most crucial step in the planning of a test, Blue print is a design for the test
paper in which we present a detailed question wise distribution of marks for specific objectives,
topics and forms of questions. Therefore, all the factors mentioned in the above four steps, i.e.,
objectives to be presented, contents to be covered, types of questions to be asked and total
time to be given, should be kept in mind while preparing the blueprint or design of the test.

How the blueprint is prepared can be understood through the following illustrations:

Blue print
Class: VII Standard Time: 45 minites
Subject: Science Total Marks: 25
Objectives Knowledge Understanding Application Skills Total
Format of O SA E O SA E O SA E O SA E
the
question
(Sub unit) 5(1) 2(2) 4(1) 2(2) 1(1) 1(2) 1(5)
Digestive 25
system
Sub total 5 4 4 4 1 2 5
Total 9 8 3 5 25

Note: Digits given in the bracket indicate the number questions set and those outside the
brackets indicate the marks associated with the questions.
Summary
Question type Number of questions Marks
O – Objective type 10 10
SA – Short answer type 5 10
E – Essay type 1 5
Total 16 25

6. Organising and arranging the items or questions

The items or questions to be included in the test require proper organisation and agreement.
The following points may prove helpful in this direction:
(i) Essay and objective type items should be kept in two separate sections with separate
time limit for each. Short answer type questions can be tagged on either of these
two sections according to their nature.
(ii) Each section should have separate instructions common to both the sections.
(iii) Items should be arranged in the order of difficulty from the essay to the more
difficult.
(iv) In objective type of items, it is advisable not to use too many different forms of
items or questions as it involves some wastage, of time in reading instructions etc.
As far as possible, multiple choice type items should be preferred as these are more
reliable, valid objective in comparison to other forms of items.
 (v) It is better to have 20% to 30% items in excess so that in final review after items’
analysis, the excess item may left out.

7. Try-out and item analysis

After planning as suggested above, the test so prepared must be administered to an
appropriate sample of students for its try-out and suggested task of item analysis. It is mainly
carried out for performing the following useful functions:
 For finding out non-clarity, ambiguities, mistakes, etc
 For determining difficulty value of each item
 For determining discriminating value of each item
With the help of such analysis, we can modify or get rid of defective items carrying ambiguities,
mistakes and non-clarity as well as having too low discriminating and too high difficulty
values.
How to carry out item analysis: both qualitative and quantitative item analysis need to be
performed for getting rid of the incompetent items. Let is discuss the processes of carrying out
both of these.
Qualitative item analysis: Here, the items of the test are subjected to close scrutiny on the part
of the test developer. He may also seek the opinion of some experienced teachers and experts
for deriving conclusion about:
(i) Which items of the test are not comprehensible or ambiguous and why?
(ii) Are the instructions given in the test clear and suitable for item responses? If not,
how can the necessary improvement be made?
(iii) Are the items helpful in assessing what they seek to assess? If not, point out the
items failing in this mission
(iv) Is there any mistake in the language used or numerical provided in the test? Suggest
the correction
With the feedback received on the above account, the necessary correction and replacement
must be in the test items.
Quantitative item analysis: the task of quantitative item analysis involves computation of
discriminating and difficulty values of each item. Let us discuss about the method of computing
these values.

 Computation of discriminating value or index

 Computation of difficulty value or index
8. Designing or preparing the final form of the test
As a result of try-out and item analysis of the test the improper items can be deleted from
the test. In additions, few items may be suitably modified or even added for making the test
more functional. This final form should then be got printed/photo stated/cyclostyled as the
situation demands for required evaluation of the students’ achievements.
9. Preparation of a scoring key
To ensure objectivity in scoring, it is advisable to have a predetermined way of scoring. It
is not only the objective type items that require an advance preparation of a scoring key, but
also in case of essay and short answer type of questions the answer and procedure for scoring
should be pre-determined specifying the things mentioned below:
 The division of marks according to the sections or subsections in which an essay type
question has been distributed.
 The number of steps or points expected in the answer.
 The number of lines or words expected for covering the answers to short and very short
answer type questions.
 The weightage given to the steps or points expected in the answer of the students.
 The nature of the model answer and weightage given for the steps provided, points
explained, illustrations given etc. In the model answer.
 Weightage given to the diagram, sketches, tables and illustrations etc.
By following the steps married above, teachers can manage to develop the required teacher-
made achievement tests for evaluating the progress of the students at the end of the delivery of
their lesson or covering up of a specific unit or course during the session.

Characteristics of a good test:

Test: Test is a procedure for meaning ability, knowledge or performance developed during a
course of learning or possessed by experience
1. Validity
A good test should possess validity. It should measure what it is intended to measure and
nothing else
If validity concerns what goes into a text or content, it is called content validity.
If validity concerns what learners and teachers think of, the test is called face validity
2. Reliability
A test is reliable if the test scores are consistent. (eg) If a student gets 80% in an English test
on Monday and he gets 82% in the same English test after a few days, test is said to be reliable.
The difference of 2% is negligible. If he gets 80% and 55% in the above two tests then the test
is not reliable as the variation is too large.
3. Reproducibility
A test should be reproducible without adopting any cumbersome procedure. Different
groups and different situations should be able to use the test constructed once.
4. Practicability
This is the administrative aspect of testing (eg) the test items language, duration of the test,
cost of the paper etc. It should be possible for the institution to produce within the means,
preserve, distribute and use for the purpose of testing.
5. Comparison and discrimination:
A good test compares one learner with another. It also compares a learner’s earlier and later
performances. The scores obtained by learners should also discriminate the abilities of
individuals who take the test.