Educational Measurement & Evaluation

Topic:

Constructing

Subjective Test Items

Content

Form and Uses of Essay Tests

Constructing Essay Items

Evaluating and Scoring Essay Tests

Developing Scoring Rubrics

Concept Of Essay

The word essay has been derived from a French word ‘essayer’ which means ‘to attempts’ .

Definition:

Essay test is a test that requires the student to structure a rather long written response up to several paragraphs.

( William weirsama )

Cont…..

Subjective test is generally a test which needs answers in form of essay, explanation and description.

When a teacher uses a subjective test questions, that means students need to use their mind and feelings to make logical claims.

Usually in doing this test students will be given about 90-120 min for 5-10 questions.

Subjective tests are more challenging & expensive to prepare, administer evaluate correctly, but they can be more valid.

Form/Types Of Essay Test

Essay questions are classified into two types:

Extended responses

Restricted response

Extended Response

Extended response items require lengthy responses that count heavily in scoring. Ideally these items focus on major concepts of the content unit and demand higher level thinking.

Examples

Describe the sampling technique used in research studies.

Explain the various ways of preventing accidents in school workshop and laboratory.

What are the implications of fuel price hike in our economy?

Restricted Response

On restricted response items examinees provide brief answers, usually no more than a few words or sentences, to fairly structured questions.

Examples

State four uses of test in education.

Give three advantages and two disadvantages of essay test.

Describe four sources of energy.

Uses of Essay Test

Ability to supply information.

Assess the ability to recall, organize, and integrate ideas.

Assess the ability to express oneself in writing.

Assess student understanding of subject matter.

Measure the knowledge of factual information.

Constructing a good essay type test

An essay test is useful measurement instrument only to the extent that it is constructed, administered and scored to ensure a high level productivity.

Here are some suggestions as a guide for construction of good essay type test.

Suggestions..

• While preparing questions, it should be kept in mind that the maximum subject matter content is covered.

• The expected length of answer of each question should be indicated on the paper.

• There should be no overall choice in question paper. Choice should be given for each question or it should be section wise.

• questions should be so worded that all examinees interpret them in the same way as the examiner wants.

• The examiner should clearly indicate the weight of each part of the question so that the examinees may determine the time to be devoted to each part of the question.

• Reasonable amount of time should be allowed to ensure that the essay type test does not become a test of speed in writing . It should be a power test rather than a speed test.

• It should indicate a variety of question to assess abilities like knowledge, understanding, analysis, synthesis and application.

• The questions may arranged in order of difficulty, i.e. from the easier to the more difficult.

Why we use essay Type questions

Use essay questions in measurement of complex achievement when it is the feature of freedom of response is required.

Because learners are free to select, relate and present ideas in their own words.

Essays questions should also be used to measure those learning outcomes that can't be measured by objective test items.

Scoring..??

A test score is piece of information, usually a number that conveys the performance of an examinee on a test.

Scoring Essay tests:

Improving objective and relevancy in scoring tests is to prepare an ideal answer to each essay question and to base the scoring on relations between examinee answers and the ideal answer.

Types of scoring Essay Test

There are two types of scoring standard in subjective test:

Norm Referenced Test

Criterion referenced Test

Norm Referenced Test

In norm referenced test, a Students achievement is compared with the other student in his/her group. The quality of a student’s achievement is influenced by the quality of the group.

Criterion referenced Test

In using criterion referenced, a student is compared with particular standard score. This means that individual compared with a preset

standard for acceptable achievement. A student’s score is usually expressed as a percentage.

Methods of scoring essay test

There are two methods of scoring essay test:

• Analytic method

• Holistic method

Point or Analytic Method

In this method, each answer is compared with already prepared ideal making scheme (scoring key ) and marks are assigned according to the adequacy of the answer.

Global/Holistic of rating Method

In this method, students first sort the response into categories of varying quality based on their general or global impression on reading the response.

Procedure for Scoring Essay Questions

Using scoring method that is most appropriate for the test item.

Decide how to handle factors that are irrelevant to the learning outcomes like handwriting, spelling, punctuation.

Prepare the ideal answer or outline of expected answer immediately after constructing the test.

Make comments during the scoring of each essay item. These comments act as feedback to students.

Suggestion For Scoring Essay Type Questions

The examiner should prepare a scoring for sub-examiner, which may contain an outline for the ideal answer.

To avoid fatigue, only a reasonable number of answer books should be marked in one setting by an examiner.

There should be consistency in assessment.

The identity of the examinees should be kept secret from the examiner so that ‘halo effect’ does not affect scoring.

What is Rubric.?

A statement of purpose, function and descriptive guideline.

Scoring Rubric :

A scoring rubric evaluates the performance of an assignment. It’s an organized way for teacher to assess their students work and learn what areas the student need to learn.

Why we use Rubrics

Easy to use and explain

Make teacher’s expectations very clear

Support students learning, specially if students use rubrics to self assess

Provide more informative feedback than other forms of assessment about both strengths and areas need of improvement.

Types of Rubrics

Analytic Rubric

Focus attention on one characteristic at a time

i.e. purpose, organization.

Holistic Rubric

Consists of a single scale with all criteria to be included in evaluation being considered together e.g. clarity

Process of developing scoring Rubrics

1. Identification of the qualities that the teacher wishes to observe in the students’ outputs that would demonstrate their level of proficiency.

2. Determined whether holistic or an analytical rubric would be more appropriate.

3. The identification and definition of the criteria for lowest level of performance.

References

http://www.testshop.com/advantages-and-limitations-of-subjective-test-items

http://k6educators.about.com/od/GradingStudents/a/Rubric-For-Scoring.htm