Designing Test Questions

• True/False
• Matching
• Multiple Choice
• Short Answer
• Essay
• Oral Exams
• Student Portfolios
• Performance

Send ideas for new workshops or comments to: Karen I. Adsit, EdD, Director

Last modified February 4, 2003

Good for:

• Knowledge level content
• Evaluating student understanding of popular misconceptions
• Concepts with two logical responses

• Can test large amounts of content
• Students can answer 3-4 questions per minute

• They are easy
• It is difficult to discriminate between students that know the material and students who don't
• Students have a 50-50 chance of getting the right answer by guessing
• Need a large number of items for high reliability

• Avoid double negatives.
• Avoid long/complex sentences.
• Use specific determinants with caution: never, only, all, none, always, could, might, can, may, sometimes, generally, some, few.
• Use only one central idea in each item.
• Don't emphasize the trivial.
• Use exact quantitative language
• Don't lift items straight from the book.
• Make more false than true (60/40). (Students are more likely to answer true.)

Good for:

• Knowledge level
• Some comprehension level, if appropriately constructed

• Terms with definitions
• Phrases with other phrases
• Causes with effects
• Parts with larger units
• Problems with solutions

• Maximum coverage at knowledge level in a minimum amount of space/preptime
• Valuable in content areas that have a lot of facts

• Time consuming for students
• Not good for higher levels of learning

• Need 15 items or less.
• Give good directions on basis for matching.
• Use items in response column more than once (reduces the effects of guessing).
• Use homogenous material in each exercise.
• Make all responses plausible.
• Put all items on a single page.
• Put response in some logical order (chronological, alphabetical, etc.).
• Responses should be short.

Good for:

• Application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels

• Question/Right answer
• Incomplete statement
• Best answer

• Very effective
• Versatile at all levels
• Minimum of writing for student
• Guessing reduced
• Can cover broad range of content

• Difficult to construct good test items.
• Difficult to come up with plausible distractors/alternative responses.

• Stem should present single, clearly formulated problem.
• Stem should be in simple, understood language; delete extraneous words.
• Avoid "all of the above"--can answer based on partial knowledge (if one is incorrect or two are correct, but unsure of the third...).
• Avoid "none of the above."
• Make all distractors plausible/homoegenous.
• Don't overlap response alternatives (decreases discrimination between students who know the material and those who don't).
• Don't use double negatives.
• Present alternatives in logical or numerical order.
• Place correct answer at random (A answer is most often).
• Make each item independent of others on test.
• Way to judge a good stem: student's who know the content should be able to answer before reading the alternatives
• List alternatives on separate lines, indent, separate by blank line, use letters vs. numbers for alternative answers.
• Need more than 3 alternatives, 4 is best.

Good for:

• Application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels

• Easy to construct
• Good for "who," what," where," "when" content
• Minimizes guessing
• Encourages more intensive study-student must know the answer vs. recognizing the answer.

• May overemphasize memorization of facts
• Take care - questions may have more than one correct answer
• Scoring is laborious

• When using with definitions: supply term, not the definition-for a better judge of student knowledge.
• For numbers, indicate the degree of precision/units expected.
• Use direct questions, not an incomplete statement.
• If you do use incomplete statements, don't use more than 2 blanks within an item.
• Arrange blanks to make scoring easy.
• Try to phrase question so there is only one answer possible.

Good for:

• Application, synthesis and evaluation levels

Types:

• Extended response: synthesis and evaluation levels; a lot of freedom in answers
• Restricted response: more consistent scoring, outlines parameters of responses

• Students less likely to guess
• Easy to construct
• Stimulates more study
• Allows students to demonstrate ability to organize knowledge, express opinions, show originality.

• Can limit amount of material tested, therefore has decreased validity.
• Subjective, potentially unreliable scoring.
• Time consuming to score.

• Provide reasonable time limits for thinking and writing.
• Avoid letting them to answer a choice of questions (You won't get a good idea of the broadness of student achievement when they only answer a set of questions.)
• Give definitive task to student-compare, analyze, evaluate, etc.
• Use checklist point system to score with a model answer: write outline, determine how many points to assign to each part
• Score one question at a time-all at the same time.

Good for:

• Knowledge, synthesis, evaluation levels

• Useful as an instructional tool-allows students to learn at the same time as testing.
• Allows teacher to give clues to facilitate learning.
• Useful to test speech and foreign language competencies.

• Time consuming to give and take.
• Could have poor student performance because they haven't had much practice with it.
• Provides no written record without checklists.

Good for:

• Knowledge, application, synthesis, evaluation levels

• Can assess compatible skills: writing, documentation, critical thinking, problem solving
• Can allow student to present totality of learning.
• Students become active participants in the evaluation process.

• Can be difficult and time consuming to grade.

Good for:

• Application of knowledge, skills, abilities

• Measures some skills and abilities not possible to measure in other ways

• Can not be used in some fields of study
• Difficult to construct
• Difficult to grade
• Time-consuming to give and take

Send comments to: Karen I. Adsit, EdD, Director

Last modified February 4, 2003

Copyright © 1998 - 2003 The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. All rights reserved.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is an EEO/AA/Title VI/Title IX/Section 504/ADA institution.