Designing Test Questions

Descriptions follow with uses, advantages, disadvantages, and tips for writing test questions in the following formats.

Jump to:

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

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True/False

Good for:

• Assessing knowledge-level content
• Evaluating student understanding of popular misconceptions
• Concepts with two logical responses

Advantages:

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

Disadvantages:

• They are usually easy (from the student's perspective)
• 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

Tips for Writing Good True/False items:

• 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.)

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Matching

Good for:

• Assessing knowledge level information
• Some comprehension level, if appropriately constructed

Types:

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

Advantages:

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

Disadvantages:

• Time consuming for students to complete.
• Not good for higher levels of learning.

Tips for Writing Good Matching items:

• 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.

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Multiple Choice

Good for:

• Application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels

Types:

• Question/Right answer
• Incomplete statement
• Best answer

Advantages:

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

Disadvantages:

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

Tips for Writing Good Multiple Choice items:

• 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/homogeneous.
• 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.

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Short Answer

Good for:

• Application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation levels

Advantages:

• 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.

Disadvantages:

• May overemphasize memorization of facts
• Take care—questions may have more than one correct answer
• Scoring can be laborious

Tips for Writing Good Short Answer Items:

• 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 two blanks within an item.
• Arrange blanks to make scoring easy.
• Try to phrase question so there is only one answer possible.

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Essay

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

Advantages:

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

Disadvantages:

• Can limit amount of material tested, therefore has decreased validity
• Subjective, potentially unreliable scoring
• Time consuming to score unless good rubric is designed

Tips for Writing Good Essay Items:

• Provide reasonable time limits for thinking and writing.
• Avoid letting students 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--ask them to compare, analyze, evaluate, etc. (and consider defining what those terms mean to you.)
• 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.

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Oral Exams

Good for:

• Knowledge, synthesis, evaluation levels

Advantages:

• 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

Disadvantages:

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

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Student Portfolios

Good for:

• Knowledge, application, synthesis, evaluation levels

Advantages:

• 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

Disadvantages:

• Can be difficult and time consuming to grade

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Performance

Good for:

• Application of knowledge, skills, abilities

Advantages:

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

Disadvantages:

• • Can not be used in some fields of study.
  • Difficult to construct.
  • Difficult to grade unless well-defined rubrics are used.
  • Time-consuming to give and take.

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