This document discusses guidelines for constructing various assessment tools, including true-false tests, multiple choice tests, matching tests, and essays. For true-false tests, it provides tips like avoiding absolute terms and trick questions. For multiple choice, it recommends making distractors plausible and consistent with the stem. Matching tests involve matching items in two columns; guidelines include using capital letters and ensuring fewer responses than premises. When constructing essays, the document advises providing clear directions and criteria for grading.

4. Chapter 5
Development of Varied
Assessment Tools:
Knowledge and Reasoning
Presented by: Angelica Grace Galwardo
& Christian Espelimbergo

5. 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.

6. Rules in constructing
True-false items

7. Example. The Philippines
gained it’s independence in
1898 and therefore celebrated
it’s centennial year in
2000._____
Do not give a hint in the
body of the question.

8. Obviously, the anwers is
FALSE because 100 years
from 1898 is not 2000 but
1998.

9. 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._____

10. Statements that use the
word “always” are almost
always false. A test-wise
student can easily guess
his way through a test like
these and get high scores
even if he does not know
anything about the test.

11. 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.________

12. Notice that the statement is true.
However, we are also not sure
which part of the sentence is
deemed true by the student. It is
just fortunate that in this case, all
parts of the sentence are true and
hence, the entire sentence is true .

13. 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.

14. The Principal’s name may actually
correct but since the word is
misspelled and the entire sentence
takes a different meaning, the
answer would be false! This is an
example of a tricky but utterly
useless item.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. With true or false questions,
avoids a grossly
disproportionate number of
either true or false statements
or even patterns in the
occurrence of true and false
statements.

18. Multiple Choice Tests
• 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.

19. 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.

20. Cntd.
• 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.

21. Cntd.
• 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.

22. Cntd.
• 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.

23. Cntd.
• 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.

24. Matching Type and Supply 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.

25. Cntd.
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.

27. 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.

30. The student reads a premise (Column A) and
finds the correct response from among those in
Column B. The student then prints the letter of
the correct response in the blank beside the
premise in Column A. An alternative is to have
the student draw a line from the correct
response to the premise, but this is more time
consuming to score.

31. In Example 1, the student only has to know five of
the six answers to get them all correct. Since each
animal in Column B can be used only once, the one
remaining after the five known answers have been
recorded is the answer for the sixth premise. One
way to reduce the possibility of guessing correct
answers is to list a larger number of responses
(Column B) than premises (Column A), as is done
in Example 2.

33. 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.

36. Essays
• Phrase the direction in such a way that students
are guided on the key concepts to be included.
• Inform the students on the criteria to be used for
grading their essays.
• Put a time limit on the essay test.
• Decide on your essay grading system prior to
getting the essays of your students.
• Evaluate all of the students’ answer to one
question before proceeding to the next question.
• Evaluate answers to essay questions without
knowing the identity of the writer
• Whenever possible have two or more persons
guide each answer

37. End of Presentation 

38. On your 1 whole yellow piece of paper
construct the different types of varied
assessment tools.
Put instructions before you construct your
questions.
o True or False at least 6 questions
o Multiple Choice 6 questions
o Matching type 6 questions
o Construct an essay questions
- Also add the correct or answer key to your
work