Designing Tests
Key concepts to designing tests (Reed, 2002) include. Good test questions:
- Address course objectives, material taught in class, and important skills and concepts
- Provide complete, consistent, and unambiguous instructions
- Present only one correct answer when only is called for
- Are easy for all students to understand
- Do not emphasize the trivial and do not ‘trick’ the students
- Have the correct answers randomly arranged throughout the test for multiple-choice tests
- Don’t provide signals or cues to eliminate incorrect answers
- Highlight a negative word, such as not, to avoid confusion
- Give students the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned, not memorized; and
- Are used to review and reinforce learning (Reed, 2002, p. 31).
