Hi Kristi, Your approach to assessment design is excellent! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
When finding the best way to determine the effectiveness of my test format I first try to see how relevant the questions are to the content. Second, I check to see if the question is challenging but still able to be answer. Third, I make sure enough key points of content is emphasized in the test. Fourth and final, I make sure the questions are included in different forms of testing (both objective and subjective) to allow the students to use more than guessing skills to answer the questions.
My test format is from a pool of questions, not necessarily multiple choice. My questions are selected based on the content covered in classes. I try to select various types so students don't get too relaxed on guessing and not so simple that it only take a minimum amount of thinking. I measure the effectiviness by how well they do on the test and how they're able to combine other concepts together to arrive at the correct answer.
Hi Cynthia, Your assessment choices are excellent and I think that having similar structures with lecture and homework is a wise practice. Susan
Susan Polick
clinicals, hands on...practice and have "mock" exams
I chose the test format based on the material covered and the student's learning styles. Currently for the course i am teaching, i am using a combination of multiple choice/true-false/fill in questions for part of the material and labeling diagrams for another part of the testing. Lecture and Homework are structured this way also so that there is consistency in how they are learning (and being reinforced) before they are assessed on their knowledge of the information.
In order to determine the effectiveness of
testing methods some objective criteria must be
developed to assess performance.
J. E. Wright
Hi Jamie, Thanks for your post to the forum. Your use of sharing the learning objectives is excellent! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
Judith, I agree with your approach. We review the learning objectives at the onset of each class, I map the day's discussions to them. My essay questions are based around these objectives.
Nancy, that's a great idea. I like to jot down quesitons after a class period based upon students' comments or expressed confusion.
Is it showing me what they know? If I am seeing confusion, lack of good responses, the test wasn't clearly understandable for my students.
Each student performs differently with certain types of questions. Being cognazant of your student style of learning and testing is the first step to identifying the skill set.
I like to use a combination of exam formats based on the type of course that I am teaching. The exams for math based courses are all computational with the addition of a few multiple choice and fill in the blank questions. Periodically, I will ask an essay question to explain a concept or an equation.
Hi Rah\'Meka, Another way to test the effectiveness of a testing format is to try a different format with a different group of students when assessing the same material. Susan
Susan Polick
I think this is a very important issue to cover and is very difficult to answer because there are so many factors involved.
If you retest the students with a different format with the same material, you have to ask yourself "did they do better because they know the answers now or because the format has been changes?"
One thing the instructor must be sure to do is ask good questions, be clear and concise, ensuring the reader will understand what the writer is asking.
Hi Barbara, Thanks for your post to the forum and sharing a good idea for assessments.
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
i have done quiz projects with several my classes. I give them each a section of the lesson plan and have them create five quiz questions to be on their quiz. Majority of the classes always use multiple choice questions because they say, Its easier to use the process of illimination and make their final decision for the answer to that question.
As a new teacher, I tend to use a variety of testing questions with some that have overlapping concepts in order to identify if the concept is learned & the student's testing abilities.
Since I teach math, my format is locked in to the student recognizing the right formula/equation and applying it correctly. Straightforward story problems, I feel, are a must -- in order to relate the abstract nature of mathematics to the real world and to demonstrate how they may need to use math in the future. The quiz/test score tells me whether we covered the material well enough. Depending on the class, I've given re-tests over the same material or covered some material on more than one test/quiz.
I teach math, so multiple-choice and true-false does not usually work too well for me. The test is usually an exercise in using the right method to get the right answer (or as much partial credit as they can get). Since I am pretty much "locked" into a format, effectiveness is measured by the results. I've given re-tests, if scores were unusually low or repeated sections of material if it looks like it wasn't clear the first time around.
