Base+Group+5+Section+2

Chapter 6 - Selected-Response Tests

__5 Item Writing Commandments__ use assessments to derive inferences about the students' cognitive performance, if these problems are present -->not an accurate measure of what they know -->not accurate inferences
 * Opaque Directions
 * Ambiguous Statements
 * Unintended Clues
 * Complex Syntax
 * Difficult Vocabulary

__Binary-Choice Items__ (ex: T/F tests) Guidelines
 * Phrasing Items to Elicit Thoughtfulness
 * Minimizing Negatives
 * Avoiding Double Concept Items
 * Balancing Response Categories
 * Maintaining Item-Length Similarity

__Multiple Binary Choice Items__ (ex: stem with questions 6.1) Guidelines
 * Separating Clusters
 * Coordinating Items w/their stem

__Multiple Choice Items__ Guidelines
 * Stem Stuffing
 * Knocking Negatively Stated Stems
 * Attending to Alt. Length
 * Assigning Correct Answer Positions
 * Dealing w/"of-the-above" alternatives

__Matching Item__- two parallel lists of words/phrases requiring students to match the entries of one list to the appropriate entry on the second list __Premises__- entries in the list for which a match is made __Responses__- entries in the list from which matches are made
 * Matching Items**

advantage: takes up little space on the page easily scored disadvantage: can encourage memorization of low level facts

- usually part of an assessment (the assessment does not usually consist entirely of matching items)

GUIDELINES FOR WRITING MATCHING ITEMS: 1. Employ homogeneous lists 2. Use relatively brief lists (place shorter phrases on the right) 3. Have more responses than premises 4. Order the responses logically 5. Describe the basis for matching and the number of times responses may be used 6. Place all premises and responses for an item on one page
 * no more than ten premises
 * ex: chronologically, alphabetically
 * to avoid page flipping

Chapter 7- Constructed-Response Tests - call for students to supply a word, phrase, or sentence in response to a direct question or incomplete sentence - if the response gets to be lengthy, the question would be considered an essay rather than short-answer - assesses simple kinds of learning outcomes (acquisition of knowledge) advantage: students need to produce a correct answer, not just recognize it disadvantage: difficult to score
 * Short-Answer Items**

GUIDELINES FOR WRITING SHORT-ANSWER ITEMS 1. Employ direct questions rather than incomplete statements 2. Structure items so that a response should be concise 3. Place blanks in the margin for direct questions or near the end of incomplete statements 4. For incomplete statements, use only one or two blanks 5. Make sure blanks for all items are equal in length
 * less ambiguous
 * create the answer before forming the question
 * place answers on right hand margin of page

__Major Points-__ 1) Put yourself, hypothetically, on the other side of the teacher’s desk when designing essay items. Explicitly communicate the desired extensiveness of the students’ responses, a description of the task, the time limit, and item-value. 2) When scoring holistically (developing a “general impression” for the item) or analytically (a fine-grained, specific point-allocation approach), devise a tentative scoring key to reduce bias. Decide the importance of mechanics beforehand, score one item of each student’s paper at a time, and strive for anonymity to increase the accuracy of your scoring. __Reading Questions-__ 1) Why should teachers create shorter matching lists (no more than ten items)? 2) How can teachers make sure their short answer questions will result in the correct answer? 3) How can essay items be useful for subjects like Science and Math, where they are typically not used? 4) What types of problems (with students, parents) do you think could arise from scoring items holistically rather than analytically?
 * Essay Items**