Measurement &

Evaluation

By

Foundation Education
& Business Solutions Ltd
(FEABS)
25, McNeil Road, Sabo Yaba, Lagos
feabs_education@yahoo.com
01-8740012, 01-3425462
 Introduction

Measurement is a process of assigning

numbers to the individual members of a set
of objects or persons for the purpose of
indicating differences among them in the
degrees to which they possess the
characteristic being measured.

On its own, evaluation is the process of

making value judgements for the purpose of
decision-making. It is simply a process
through which value judgements or
decisions are made from a variety of
observations or test results. It also involves
the inspection of all available information
concerning the student, teacher and entire
educational programme for the purpose of
making valid judgments about the degree of
change in students and the effectiveness of
the educational programme.
Training Focus

The focus of this training is therefore to

expose teachers to rudiments of
measurements and evaluation so that
whatever judgements or conclusions to be
drawn about the educational enterprise
generally will be valid as much as possible.

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 THE INSTURCTIONAL OBJECTIVES

Instructional objectives clarify the learning

outcomes expected to result from teaching.

It is a statement that describes in behavioural

terms what the students should be able to do,
the conditions under which the task is to be
performed and the criterion for acceptable
performance. Thus, the teacher uses
instructional objectives to describe students’
terminal behaviour after a given unit of
instruction.

Classification of Objectives

According to Bloom’s Taxonomy of objectives,

objectives can be classified into three broad
areas namely:

•Cognitive Domain

•Affective Domain

•Psychomotor Domain

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 Classification of Objectives …
S/N CLASS OF AREA USEFUL VERBS
OBJECTIVES
1 Cognitive Domain -Knowledge - Define, list, reproduce, state, name, identify, enumerate,
etc.)
-Comprehension - Convert, explain, defend, distinguish, generalise, rewrite,
reorder, predict, etc.
-Application - Change, discover, operate, demonstrate, produce, relate,
solve, compute modify, calculate, etc.

-Analysis - Break down, distinguish, deduce, separate, identify,

differentiate, illustrate, infer, point out, select, sub-divide, etc.
- Create, generate, rearrange, reconstruct, reorganize, plan,
-Synthesis revise, compile, devise, design, modify, etc.

- Appraise, compare, contrast, evaluate, decide, interpret,

-Evaluation justify, conclude, support, relate, discriminate, etc. )

2 Affective Domain -Receiving -ask, choose, describe, follow, give, hold, identify, locate,
point to, select, sit erect, reply, use, name, etc.
-Responding -answer, report, perform, recite, write, greet, practice, report,
comply, perform, present, select, conform, label, read, tell,
etc.
-Valuing -complete, differentiate, initiate, propose, share, explain,
invite, read, study, etc.
-Organization -identify, adhere, compare, generalise, order, synthesise, alter,
complete, identify, organise, arrange, defend, integrate,
prepare, combine, explain, modify, relate, etc.
-display, act, propose, serve, discriminate, modify, solve,
-characterisation display, perform, question, use, influence, practice, revise,
verify, etc.

3 Psychomotor -Gross bodily -throw, catch, jump, match, kick, run, swim, dive, box, dance,
Domain movement etc.

-finely coordinated -hand-finger coordination, hand-eye coordination, hand and

movements ear coordination, and hand, eye, foot and ear coordination
-using the hand and arms to communicate with the deaf,
-Non-verbal convey a given message to a panel by gestures, etc.
communication
behaviour drama, speech, foreign language and speech correctional
programmes. Objectives include the ability to recite a poem or
-Speech behaviour produce specified musical note.

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 Characteristics of well-stated Instructional Objectives

From what has been said so far, well-stated instructional objectives must possess the
following features:

They must describe in behavioural terms what the students will be able to do when
the instruction has been completed.

They must describe the conditions or circumstances under which the learned
behaviour will occur.

They must describe the extent to which the specified behaviour can be expected,
i.e. they suggest an acceptable criterion level for performance.

Examples:

At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

- define economics
- explain some of the basic terms associated with economics
- list measures of central tendencies.

Questions

&

Discussions
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 Test as A Measuring Instrument

A test is a set of standardized questions or inventories

administered to an individual for the purpose of measuring or
obtaining quantitative information about several aspects of the
individual’s behaviour.

It can also be defined as an instrument, a device or a procedure

that proposes a sequence of tasks which a student is to respond,
the results of which are used as a measure of a specified trait.

Tests generally are useful for prediction, selection,

classification and evaluation, hence it is important to ensure that
it is highly reliable.

CRITERIA FOR A GOOD TEST

TES
T

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 CLASSROOM TESTS
 Teacher-Made Achievement Tests
•Teacher-made tests are the tests constructed, administered and
scored by the classroom teacher or possibly by a committee or
several teachers in the same school.
•The teacher-made tests are constructed by a teacher to measure
learning outcomes of students in his classroom.
•The items are built around definite objectives specifically taught
for in the class.
•Teacher-made tests are usually based on the content of the
curriculum of a particular course or school.

Planning Teacher-Made Tests

In planning for teacher-made achievement tests, the following
procedures or activities are important.

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 Uses of Achievement Test

To measure the quantity and quality of students’

learning in a subject.
To determine the nature of individual differences
in a group.
To place and classify students according to their
ability into groups for instructional purposes.
To aid in the assigning of grades to students
after completing a prescribe course of instruction.
To select students into an educational
programme.
To provide feedback to students about their
learning progress. This helps to motivate them to
learn.
To diagnose students’ learning problems, their
strengths and weaknesses.
It provides basis for award of prizes, scholarships
and certificates.
It provides basis for promotion of students to
next class level or for retention of students.
It provides information needed in making
educational Foundation
and Education & .
career decisions
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 DEVELOPING A TEST BLUEPRINT
 Before developing test items, there is need to develop a test
blueprint (or table of specification). The test blue-print is a 2-way
table that relates the units of lesson or content area to the levels
of cognitive domain objectives at which these contents have been
learnt. It provides the operational blueprint that guides the test
builder and ensures that he builds a test that will do what it set to
do. The purpose of test blueprint is to define as clearly as possible
the scope and emphasis of the test and to relate the objectives to
the content. The test blueprint helps to achieve content validity
and provides groundwork for building achievement tests.

 The blueprint specifies precisely what weight to give each topic

and each instructional objective. There is no fixed rule that can be
prescribed to the teacher to use in determining the weights to be
assigned to the various cells in the table of specifications. Usually,
the assignment of weight depends on the teacher’s subjective
judgement in terms of the relative importance, time devoted to
teaching the topic and the relative emphasis used by the teacher
when he taught the course. The Table below shows an example of
a test blueprint
Example of A Test Blueprint for an Objective Test
in Economics

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 MEASURABLE VARIABLES
VARIABLE DEFINITION
STANDARDISE An achievement test is a test
D that measures the extent to
ACHIEVEMENT which a person has “achieved”
TESTS something, acquired certain
information, or mastered
certain skills – usually as a
result of planned instruction or
training. Achievement tests
attempt to measure what an
individual has learned, i.e. his
present level of performance.
CHARACTERISTICS
-It is constructed in accord with detailed
specifications
-Items are selected after tryout for
appropriateness in difficulty and
discriminating power,
-It is accompanied by a manual giving
definite directions for uniform
administration and scoring,
-It is provided with relevant and
dependable norms for score
interpretation.
-They are those tests whose procedure
for administration and scoring has been
made uniform or standard.
-By and large, standardised achievement
tests have, almost without exception,
substantial reliabilities near, or into, 0.90
range.

APTITUDE Aptitude tests are those tests -It involves both innate and acquired
TEST that measure an individual’s abilities
•Differential potential to achieve in a given -It measures non-deliberate or
test activity or to learn to achieve in unplanned learning
•Work-sample that activity. The purpose of -It measures a person’s capacity to excel
aptitude test aptitude testing is to predict in the future based on present
•Analogous test how well an individual will performance.
•Component perform on some criterion (such -Aptitudes are based on psychological
ability test as school grades, teacher’s factors known from empirical studies to
ratings or job performances) account for good performance in the
before training or instruction is activity under consideration.
begun or selection or placement
decisions are made.

INTEREST Interest can be defined as -The individual is required to indicate his

•Vocational tendencies to participate in an
Interest activity. It is a preferential
Inventories treatment given to a particular
activity.
The vocational interest
inventories comprise the
activities and performance of
people in different occupations.
interest in those activities
-This is followed by the assignment of an
empirically determined weight to the
individual’s responses
-The performance of the individual on
the inventory is then compared with
those who have been successful in the
occupations.

PERSONALITY Personality refers to the -Personality tests are instruments for

TEST affective or non-intellectual measuring the affective or non-
•Paper-pencil aspects of behaviour. It is the intellectual aspects of behaviour for
self-report organized system of behaviours
Foundation personal
Education & counselling
8/9/2009
inventories and values that characterize a -They are used to measure such aspects 10
•Projective Business
given individual Solutions
and account Ltd.
for of personality as emotional stability,
techniques. his particular manner of friendliness, motivation, dominance,
Developing
Essay Tests
- A mode of
Achievement Tests
Definition
Essay tests consist of a list of
questions for which the
subject (student) is required
to write out the answer.
An essay item is a question
or situation with instruction,
which requires the testee to
organise a complete thought
in one or more written
sentences. The testee is
given freedom to generate
responses which must be
assessed by a scorer who is
knowledgeable in the subject
area.
Essay tests are best suited
for measuring students’
ability to originate and
integrate ideas, their depth
of knowledge and
understanding, verbal
expression, creativity and
higher thought processes.
Choice questions are often
provided so that all the
testees do not necessarily
have to answer the same set
of questions.
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Construction Guidelines
The following guidelines are useful in setting
essay tests.
 Describe the specific objectives which the
questions are to measure.
 Avoid open-ended questions.
 Word the questions in such a way that the
candidates will interpret them in the same
way.
 Give a clue as to what you expect from the
students to make for uniformity.
 Be mindful of time. Attempt answering the
questions you set.
 The essay items should be of moderate
difficulty, not too easy, but difficult enough
to pose a challenge.
 Give adequate time and thought to the
preparation of essay questions.
 The questions should be written so that it
will elicit the type of behaviour to measure.
 Phrase the questions with the action verbs
appropriate to the relevant instructional
objective in the cognitive domain.
 Do not provide optional questions on an
essay test or better still be minimised.
 Use a relatively large number of questions
requiring short answers rather than just a
few questions involving long answers.
 Do not start essay questions with such
words as list, who, what, and whether.
These words tend to elicit responses that
require only a regurgitation of factual
information.
 Adapt the length of the response and the
complexity of the question and answer to
the maturity level of the students.
 Prepare a marking scheme for scoring the
answers.
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 Developing Objective Tests
- A mode of Achievement Tests
Definition
Objective tests are tests in which every question is set in such a way as to have only one right answer. The items are
constructed in a way as to have one, predetermined correct answer. Objective tests are called objective because
similar answers by different testees are given the same marks, no matter who did the scoring.
 

Type Definition Guidelines

1. Short- The short-answer item 1. For computational problems, the teacher
Answer (also called the supply should specify the degree of precision and
Items answer or completion the units of expression expected in the
item) presents a task in answer.
a sentence in which a 2. Omit only essential or important words in a
word, a number, a sentence.
symbol, or a series of 3. avoid excessive blanks in a single item. The
words has been omitted. teacher should not eliminate so many
The items call for only elements of a statement that the item
one response for a blank becomes ambiguous and confusing.
or a specific series of 4. The blanks are typically placed at the end of
responses for a series of a statement rather than at the beginning.
blanks. When the blank is placed at the beginning or
middle of the sentence, the essential point to
that question may be overlooked or
forgotten by the time the student reads the
item.
5. Make all the blanks the same size regardless
of the answer.
6. To test for the knowledge of definitions
and/or the comprehension of technical
terms, use a direct question in which the
term is given and a definition is asked for.
7. Avoid giving irrelevant clues to the correct
answer in the structure of the item.

2. The In the alternate choice Avoid the use of specific determiners, i.e. words
Alternate item, the students are that serve as special clues to the answer.
Choice given two options to Avoid verbatim quotes from textbooks.
Items choose one. Such Each statement should be entirely true or
options include yes-no, entirely false.
true-false, right-wrong Avoid trivial details in order to make a
and correct-incorrect statement false.
Avoid negative statements as much as possible.
Avoid controversial statements, or else quote
relevant authority.
Avoid a pattern of answers. Let the number of
true statements be approximately equal to the
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 Developing Objective Tests (Cont’d)
- A mode of Achievement Tests
Type Definition Guidelines
3. The The matching item 1. Use only homogenous premises and homogenous
Matching presents two lists usually responses in each matching exercise, i.e. all
Items called the premise and should refer to date, all to names, all to places,
response. The premise and so on. Be sure the student knows the basis
consists of the questions on which the terms should be matched.
or problems to be 2. Avoid having equal number of premises and
answered, while the responses.
response list contains the 3. Arrange the numbers in systematic fashion such
answers. Examples of as alphabetical order, dates and numbers, either
such pairs of sets are in ascending or descending pattern.
nations and capitals, 4. Avoid extraneous irrelevant clues.
nations and major 5. Maintain grammatical consistency.
exports, terms and 6. Every response in one column should be a
definitions, dates and plausible answer to every premise in the other
events, etc. column.
7. All items and options for a given matching
exercise should be on a single page.

4. The The multiple choice items 1.  State the instructional objectives and content to
Multiple- consist of a stem and a be covered.
Choice branch. The stem 2. Provide at least four options but not more than
Items presents the problem as five.
either an incomplete 3. There should be one correct response.
statement or a question, 4. The question to be answered must emerge clearly
while the branch presents from the stem.
a list of suggested 5. All distracters should be plausible and attractive
answers (responses or to students who do not know the correct answer;
options). There are yet they should be incorrect.
usually four or five 6. Each item should be independent. One item
options. Among the should not aid in answering another item on the
options, only one is the test.
correct answer (called the 7. Avoid irrelevant clues to the correct answer
key). The incorrect provided by response length, repetition of key
options are called words, common associations or grammar.
distracters. A distracter is 8. Avoid a pattern of answers. Each letter should
a plausible but wrong appear almost the same number of times on the
answer designed to key, the letters being in random order.
confuse the student who 9. The stem and options must be linked
does not know the correct grammatically.
answer. 10. Positive rather than negative stems ought to be
used or negatively stated items should be
minimised.
11. Minimise the use of ‘all of these, ‘none of these’,
as options. Avoid using them both for the same
item.
Foundation
12. Education
Avoid &
verbatim quotes from textbooks, lecture
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may be based on materials from these.
 SCORING CLASSROOM TESTS

Objective Test
Objective tests are easy to score. They can be hand-scored or machine-
scored. For machine scoring however, special answer sheets must be
used along with special pencils for answering.

Models of Scoring Objective Tests

Many models have been developed for scoring objective tests but the
most commonly used in Africa are:

• Rights only
Here each question on the test carries equal marks, usually one point. A
candidate’s final score is simply the number of items marked right.

• Correction-for-guessing
This system is based on assumptions such as :

I. that students who are ignorant of some objective test items

obtain some correct answers through guessing;
II. that all the options per item are equally attractive to the
ignorant students
III. that the more a student knows, the less he guesses.

Since guessing introduces an error score, the items obtained through

guessing are to be deducted from examinee’s marks. This penalty for
guessing is carried out by the application of the correction-for-guessing
formula which states:
 
S = R – W/(n-1) where:

R = number of questions marked right

W = number of questions marked wrong
n = number of options per item
S = score after correction

This model is applicable only to multiple-choice and true-false (n=2)

tests and to the number of questions actually attempted by the
candidates. Whenever this correction is to be applied,, students should
be warned in advance with test instructions such as:
“attempt only those questions you are sure of”
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“no wild guessing allowed”,Education
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 SCORING CLASSROOM TESTS (Cont’d)
Essay Test

The essay test should be restricted as much as possible to

the measurement of the educational objectives for which the
objective tests are inadequate. These include the evaluation
of verbal expression, depth of knowledge and understanding,
originality, creativity and higher thought processes.

It should be noted that teaching which emphasises

‘wholeness of learning’ and ‘insightful understanding’ of
large concepts are best evaluated with essay tests while the
connectionist approach which emphasises learning in small
parts (frames) is most adaptable to objective examinations.

The major uses of the essay are in areas where the objective
test tends to be unsuitable and particularly at university
levels. It is also used for appraising attitudes and as a
Guidelines for Essay Test
projective technique for appraising some personality factors.
1. Essay questions are best suited for assessing higher
thought processes for which the objective test is
weak.
2. Ensure that every question is relevant to the course-
content.
3. Each question should be of moderate difficulty level
for the examinees.
4. Be mindful of the time available for test
administration and the scope for each question
should be accordingly limited.
5. Avoid vagueness. Each question should pose a
definite problem, be brief and be expressed in words
within the examinees’ vocabulary.
6. Prepare a marking scheme for each question as an
aid to marking and reducing vagueness.
7. Optional questions should be avoided or minimised.
8. Some leading useful leading verbs in setting essay
8/9/2009 questions are: compare,
Foundation contrast,
Education & distinguish,
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explain, list, solve, demonstrate, differentiate,
evaluate, illustrate.
 TEST INTERPRETATION
 
Test interpretation entails assigning meaning to scores, explaining the
circumstances that gave rise to such results and the probable
consequences of such results.
 
Guidelines for interpreting test results

1.The counsellor must know the test thoroughly.

2.Explore the client’s reason for wanting tests and experiences with
tests. The client’s expectation are important data to be considered,
since he may be expecting much more than the tests can reasonably
be expected to perform.
3.Structure the test interpretation session to prepare the client for
meaningful, undistorted information. The counsellor must ascertain the
client’s knowledge of the limitations of testing as well as the values for
giving various self-information.
4.The meaning of the scores should be established early in the
discussion, i.e. the client should know clearly what type of measure is
being discussed – interest, aptitude, achievement or personality.
5.The frame of reference of the test results should be specified clearly,
i.e. the client must know at all times which form group is being used so
that he can have some yardstick for judging how high a high score
really is.
6.Test results, not scores, should be give to clients. The counsellor
should not use exact scores in interpretation. Rather, he should use
descriptive phrases.
7.Test results should always be verified. The counsellor should never
use a score in isolation. Test results should be woven in with other case
data to check on the validity as well as the reliability of the test score.
8.Counsellor neutrality in imparting test results. The test should speak
for themselves without the counsellor’s personal value projections.
9.Meaningful and clear interpretation should be the counsellor’s
constant aim.
10.Accurate prediction is the principal aim of testing. Test results
should be stated in terms of statistical predictions.
11.Client participation and evaluation should be encouraged.
Interaction between client and counsellor is valuable as it gives the
counsellor constant information regarding how the client is receiving
interpretation.
12.The interpretation of low scores to normal clients is one of the most
difficult problems the counsellor faces. However, the counsellor may
test the client’s readiness to accept
Foundation low scores
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question.
 Questions

&

Discussions
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