<<I've been using multiple choice test items for the last two years, with a
little
twist. My students have to write a brief justification for their choices,
eithe
r explaining why their choice makes sense and/or explaining why the other
choices aren't as good. I've been pretty pleased with the results. It has
pretty much eliminated guessing. Students who can't think of a good reason
for a choice don't bother to respond since I make clear that a choice
without
justification will not earn any credit.>>
BRAVO!
Here is another approach you may find interesting:
I have always considered it important for students to understand how tests
are developed. I have found that this experience has enabled my students to
better prepare for my tests and is more effective than the review lessons we
usually do before a test.
Teachers should provide students with information on the topics to be tested
and the item format (i.e. multiple choice, enhanced multiple choice, short
constucted response, extended contructed reposnse, open-neded with multiple
anwsers, essay, etc.) so that students know how to prepare themselves for the
test. Once students have experience answering each item type and understand
how each is scored, it then makes sense to have students actually write some
items (test developers call this item-development) and even select a few
items for a test (test developers call this test assembly). My students
would write items based on the content and test specifications I would
provide them (interpreted as we discussed as a class the topics to be tested
(basically I knew what we would agree on beforehand) and decided how many
items to write on each topic and what item formats we would use). For
multiple choice items, it was required that they indicate the correct key and
show how to obtain it, and for each of the distractors they needed to provide
a rationale for how someone would obtain that answer.
In groups, they would assemble a test to meet these specifciations and one
person in the group (we called this person our "measurement specialist") was
given the job of ensuring that the test actually met these specifications and
represented items of each abilty level. One person would check the answer
keys and one would check that the item was clear. Once this was done, the
finished test was given to another group to take so that each group took a
different group's test. When the group taking the test did not agree with
the group that develped the test (this happened often), we had quite a bit to
discuss including the need for items to be clear and the need for the
item/test directions to specify the format the item should be given in or how
much work needed to be shown, etc.
This helped my students understand enough about test construction that they
were better able to prepare for tests that I developed. I generally did this
as a means of getting them to review for a test and so we could consider the
test they developed as a form of pretesting since I did occasionally use some
of their items on the real test. Now when students complained about my test,
they had to jsutify this in terms of reliabilty and validity. What a great
experience for students in a course in statistics or psychometrics but I did
this with all clasess including students in general math. There is a great
deal of statistics that can be done as part of the item-analysis phase.
Hope this helps.
Deanna M. De'Liberto
Assessment Specialist
D SQUARED ASSESSMENTS, INC.
(Specialists in Test Development / Validation and Test Administration)
9 Bedle Road, Suite 250
Hazlet, NJ 07730-1209
Phone: (732) 888-9339
Email: Ddeliberto@aol.com
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