Tips for Writing GoodTests

Good Teacher-Made Tests are Crucial for Student Success

by Harvey Craft

A test is more than an assessment of learning. Tests should assess and teach. Teacher-made tests should be well-conceived, carefully written, and evaluated.



Teachers are typically evaluated on how they teach. Statistics are hard to find that tell how often teachers are evaluated on how they test. Assessing should produce more than a score — it should cause students to think and exercise a variety of skills. Students should be better test-takers as a result of teacher assessment. Teachers should remember that student scores are an indication of teaching and testing skills.

Principals Should Review Teacher Tests

Principals and anyone involved in the evaluation of teachers should examine tests that teachers make. Other published materials that are used should be reviewed as well. The fact that an assessment has been published is not sufficient reason to assume that is a good instrument. Much of the assessment material that comes with textbook kits is woefully inadequate and lacks validity and reliability. 

Principals should occasionally also look at grades students make on specific tests. One important issue might be the grade distribution. Does the “scatter” of grades seem reasonable, or are there an excessive number of failing grades? Teachers should be able to describe how they grade tests and their rational for evaluation.

Teachers will use assessments of varying kinds, but grades should be derived from summative assessments, not homework grades, pop quizzes, true-false quizzes, classwork, etc. Major tests should have both subjective and objective items. 

There is no need to grade everything a student does — it isn’t even a good idea to do so. Formative assessments don't need grading. Also, the more grades, the less each one affects the final average. Students need to know that somethings they do are for practice and not grades.They should see the results of practice on their assessments.

Teachers Should Strive for Reliable and Valid Tests

Relatively few teachers are thoroughly familiar with statistical procedures, but the concepts of reliability and validity should be understood, as they can serve as guides in developing better major assessments.

Reliability refers to the internal consistency of a test. For example, different forms of the same test should yield very similar results when given to students of equal ability and studying the same standards. Within the same class two versions of a test should produce very close to the same average score.

Validity is the extent to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure. Simply put, tests should address standards being taught — content validity. Criterion validity assumes that a test will be correctly aligned with some outside criterion such as a state test on the standards taught.

Good Test Development may Take Time to Learn

Teaching is hard work and very demanding of one’s time. Teachers’ meetings tend to dwell on administrative matters. Although staff development is included during the year, there are so many issues in education that many of the basics are omitted. Test improvement can easily take a back seat to the long list of concerns.

Teachers are just expected to know how to write test. After all, they have endured countless hours of tests in their educations. But like many things not done well in education, many teachers assume that the tests they received as students were properly developed. After all, any adult can write a test. But not any adult can do it correctly.

Good test writing is a skill based on knowledge of subject matter, students, statistical procedures, and analysis of results. One way to begin test improvement immediately is to analyze test results. Machines like Scantrons have special sheets that allow the teacher to view the number of students that missed each test item. Scrutiny of such data can help teachers determine what is good and not so good about a test. For example, if 75% of one class misses an item and 10% of another class misses the same item then there is a clue about instruction that needs addressing.

Use Well-Constructed Tests as Examples

Teachers should always be mindful of standardized tests and how they are constructed. For example, they don’t rely on trick questions, true/false items, matching, and other common classroom practices in poor assessment.

Good tests teach students about test-taking. If teachers give poorly constructed assessments students are not learning an important skill that will assist them in correctly interpreting and answering tests.

States have placed a lot of effort into test development over the past decade. Many samples of well-constructed state standardized tests are available on the Internet. Testing companies like SAT and ACT provide practice questions written by professionals. These are good places for teachers to compare their assessments.

Test-writing is a teaching skill often ignored in education. Principals should examine test samples to help teachers work toward better test development. One must not assume that assessments published with textbooks are reliable and valid. Good examples of standardized test items are available via the Internet.

Sources:

“Teacher-Made Tests,” education.ucsb.edu. Accessed September 22, 2011