This document provides guidelines for effectively evaluating essay responses on tests. It recommends deciding in advance what qualities will be evaluated for each question, creating an answer guide of model responses, scoring one question at a time for all papers before moving to the next question, shuffling papers between questions, grading anonymously, and providing feedback to students on their strengths and weaknesses. Maintaining consistent standards, minimizing bias, and motivating learning are principal goals.

1. Masters of Education in Leadership and
Management

2.  One of the drawbacks of the essay test is that there is
much real work to left to do after the test has been
given. Adequate appraisal with an essay test requires
not only a good set of items but also sound and
consistent judgment of the quality of the answers.
Variations in scoring from item to item and from
examinee contribute to error in the measurement of
competences. The following guideline will help you to
do the best job possible in evaluating student’s
responses.

3.  Decide in advance what qualities are to be considered
in judging the adequacy of an answer to each question.
If more than one distinct quality is to be appraised,
evaluate each one separately. Of course, when spelling
and grammar will be evaluated, the students should be
appraised of the fact in the directions for the test.
 Prepare an answer guide of model answer showing
what points should be covered to receive full credit.
This practice will help you maintain a consistent set of
standard across papers. It is particularly important if
scoring will extend over several days.

4.  Read the answers to one question before going on to
the next one. This practice accomplished two
purposes:
◦ The grader can maintain a more uniform set of
standards across all papers and
◦ The grader is less likely to be influenced in judging
the quality of the answered to one question by
comparing it to how well the student answered the
previous question.

5.  After scoring the answers to one question for all papers,
shuffle the papers before starting to score the next
question. It is hard to avoid comparing one student’s
answers to the answers given by the student whose
papers were scored immediately before it.
 Grade the papers as nearly anonymously as possible.
The less you know about who wrote an answer, the
more objective you can be in judging what was written.
The criteria of quality for answers to easy questions
should be the same for all examiners. Teachers
sometimes object to this guideline because they wish to
adjust standards for different ability levels.

6.  Write comments and correct errors in the answers to
essay question. It is a long established principle that a
test is most effective as a motivational and learning
device when students get prompt specific information
about their strengths and weakness.

7. Record on card,
Editing: appropriate, relevant to specific
learning outcome free from ambiguity,
irrelevant clues, According to table of
specification Separate Section, Direction for
test

8. Separate card index :Instructional
objective, Specific learning
outcomes, content measured,
Space for item analysis,

9.  Is appropriate
 Is Point of item clear
 Is Free from excessive verbiage
 Is appropriate difficulty level
 Does expert agreed on answer
 Is free from technical error
 IS free from ethic&sexual bias

10. 1. The types of items used
2. The learning outcomes measured
3. Arrange in difficulty level
4. The Subject matter measured

11.  Time for answering
 Basis for answering
 Procedure for recording
 Guessing
 Reproducing the test:Space,M.C.Q,s vertically, circling
of correct answer