DEVELOPMENT OF

ASSESSMENT TOOLS:
KNOWLEDGE AND
REASONING
Types of Objective Tests
• True-false items
• Multiple-choice type items
• Matching types and Supply types
• Essays
 Planning a Test and Construction of Table
of Specification
The important steps in planning for a test are:
• Identifying test objectives
• Deciding on the type of objective test to be prepared
• Preparing a Table of specifications (TOS)
• Constructing the draft test items
• Try-out and validation
 Constructing a True-False Test
• Binomial-choice tests are tests that have only two
options such as true or false, right or wrong, good or
better as son on.
• A student who knows nothing of the content of the
examination would have 50% chance of getting the
correct answer by sheer guess work.
• A modified true-false test can offset the effect of
guessing by requiring students to explain their answer
and to disregard a correct answer if the explanation is
incorrect.
Rules in constructing
True-false items
Do not give a hint in the body of
the question.

Example. The Philippines gained

it’s independence in 1898 and
therefore celebrated it’s
centennial year in 2000._____
 Avoid using the words “always”,
“never”, “often” and other adverbs that
tend to be either always true or always
false.

Christmas always falls on a

Sunday because it is
Sabbath day._____
Avoid long sentences as these tend to
be “true”. Keep sentences short.

Test need to be valid, reliable and

useful, although, it would require
a great amount of time and effort
to ensure that tests possess these
test characteristics.________
Avoid trick statements with some
minor misleading word or spelling
anomaly, misplaced phrases, etc.

True or False. The

Principle of our school is
Mr. Albert P. Fortalejo.
Avoid quoting verbatim from reference
materials or textbooks. This practice
sends wrong signal to the students that it
is necessary to memorize the textbook
word for word and thus, acquisition of
higher level thinking skills is not given
due importance.
Avoid specific determiners or give-away qualifiers.
Students quickly learn that strongly worded
statements are more likely to be false than true, for
example, statements with “never” “no” “all” “or”
“always”. Moderately worded statements are more
likely to be true than false. Statements with “many”
“often” “sometimes” “generally” “frequently” or
“some” should be avoided.
 MULTIPLE CHOICE ITEMS
• Each item in a multiple choice test consists of two parts:
• Stem and options
• In the set of options, there is a “correct” or “best” option
while all the others are considered “distracters”.
• The distracters are chosen in such a way that they are
attractive to those who do not know the answer or are
guessing but at the same time, have no appeal to those who
actually know the answer.
• This feature allows the teacher to test higher order thinking
skills even if the options are clearly stated.
 Guidelines in Constructing
Multiple Choice Items
• Do not use unfamiliar words, terms, and phrases.
• Do not use modifiers that are vague and whose
meanings can differ from one person to the next such as:
much, often, usually, etc.
• Avoid complex word or awkward word arrangements.
• Do not use negatives or double negatives as such
statements tend to be confusing.
• Each item stem should be as short as possible
• Distracters should be equally plausible and attractive.
• All multiple choice options should be grammatically consistent
with the stem.
• The length, explicitness, or degree of technicality of alternatives
should not be the determinants of the correctness of the answer.
• Avoid stems that reveal the answer to another item
• Avoid alternatives that are synonymous with others or those that,
include or overlap others.
• Avoid presenting sequenced items in the same order as in the text.
• Avoid use of assumed qualifiers that many examinees may not be
aware of.
• Avoid necessary words or phrases that are irrelevant.
• Avoid use of non relevant sources of difficulty.
• Avoid extreme specificity requirements in responses.
• Include as much of the item as possible in the stem.
• Use the “none of the above” option only when the keyed
answer is totally correct.
• Note that use of “all of the above” may allow credit for partial
knowledge.
• Having compound responses choices may purposefully
increase difficulty of an item.
• The difficulty of a multiple choice item may be controlled by
varying the homogeneity or degree of similarity of responses.
 Matching Type Items
• The matching type items may be considered as modified
multiple choice type items where the choices progressively
reduce as one successfully matches the items on the left
with items on the right.
• This implies some type of selection question in which the
answers are provided, and the task of the student is
recognition. Matching items are generally easy to write and
score when the test content and objectives are suitable for
matching questions. Possible difficulties in using matching
items may arise due to poor student handwriting or
printing, or students' being able to guess correct answers
through the process of elimination.
In developing matching items, there are two columns of material

(Example 1). Not a link: Current module is Matching Questions The

items in the column on the left (Column A) are usually called

premises and assigned numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.). Those in the column

on the right (Column B) are called responses and designated by

capital letters. Remember short items go column B due to the

standard that is given. In Example 1. Capital letters are used rather

than lower case letters in case some students have reading

problems. Also there are apt to be fewer problems in scoring the

student's handwritten responses if capital letters are used.

Some writers suggest there be no more than five to
eight premises (Column A) in one set. For each
premise, the student has to read through the entire list
of responses (or those still unused) to find the
matching response. For this reason, the shorter
elements should be in Column B, rather than Column
A to minimize the amount of reading needed for each
item. Although there is little difference in the length
of items in the two columns in Examples 1 and 2, note
the improvement in Example 3b when the items in the
two columns in Example 3a are reversed.
 Supply Type Items

• Depends heavily on the way that the stems are

constructed. These test allow for one and only one
answer and, hence, often tests only the students’
knowledge. It is, however, possible to construct
supply type of tests that will test higher order
thinking as the following example will show
Example: Write an appropriate symbol
for each of the following. Each blank
corresponds to a letter:

Metamorphose: _ _ _ _ _ _

Flourish: _ _ _ _
 Essay
• Classified as non-objective tests, allow for the assessment of
higher order thinking skills. Such tests require students to
organize their thoughts on a subject matter in coherent
sentences in order to inform an audience. In essay tests,
students are requested to write one or more paragraphs on a
specified topic.
Essay questions can be used to measure attainment of a
variety of objectives. Stecklein (1955) has listed 14 types of
abilities that can be measured by essay items:
1. Comparisons between two or more thing
2. The development and defense of an opinion
3. Questions of cause and effect
4. Explanation of meaning
5. Summarizing of information in a designated area
6. Analysis
7. Knowledge of relationship
8. Illustrations of rules, principles, procedures, and
application
9. Application of rules, laws, and principles to new
situation
10. Criticism of adequacy, relevance, or correctness of a
concept, idea or information
11. Formulation of new questions and problems
12. Reorganization of facts
13. Discrimination between objects, concepts, or events
14. Inferential thinking