Three Fundamental Principles For Crafting Assessment Tasks Six Important Guidelines For Developing Multiple Choice Items Five Guidelines For Developing Essay Items

1. • Three Fundamental Principles For Crafting
AssessmentTasks
• Six Important Guidelines For Developing
Multiple Choice Items
• Five Guidelines For Developing Essay Items
NurWaheeda Binti Annur Sani (126540)
Nurul Nadia Binti Mat Noor (126552)
Mohamad Haniff Bin Azmi (126502)
PGT202E
BASIC EDUCATIONAL
MEASUREMENT & EVALUATION

3. 1. Focus on the important learning outcome
•It is a waste of time to assess minor point of
content.
Example : The item of task (essay item) must
be based on learning outcome that we what
to achieved

4. 2. The tasks should crafted so the responses from
students only related to the knowledge and
performance relevant to the learning outcome to be
assessed.
 The teacher must need very clear idea of the
learning outcome that she/he want to assessed.
 Item must be built to test the knowledge, skills
and abilities based the learning outcome.
 Avoid from unwanted behaviors from student.
Example: The item must not make the student do
bluffing, fear, guessing or test-wise skills while.

5. 3. The tasks neither prevent nor inhibit students'
ability to demonstrate that they have achieved the
learning outcome.
•Imprecise wording in a question, for example, may
make an item so ambiguous that a student who has
the knowledge answers it incorrectly.
•Inappropriate vocabulary, poorly worded directions
or poorly drawn diagrams may lead knowledgeable
students answer incorrectly.

7. 1. Define the task in the stem
 The stem will present clearly described
task
 Students can then get to work on figuring
out wich of the item’s option is best

8. 2. Make sure the length of each alternative is
more or less the same.
• This is because normally the longest alternative is the right
answer.
• The students will easily guess the longest alternative is the
correct answer because too much facts are given in that
alternative compared to the other alternative.

9. 3. Avoid overlapping alternative means
Sometimes the teachers overlooked the alternative that
given by them have overlapping means.
It often occurs because the teachers wanted to keep the
number of alternative for their items and they run out of
idea.

10. 4. Build the questions and alternatives by using the positive
descriptions
 If the word “NOT” used in a stem, it should be bold by the
teacher so that the students did not overlooked it.
 Almost 70% of high school students in Malaysia overlooked the
word “NOT” in the question and answered it wrongly.

11. 5. The Stem Should Be A Question Or A Partial Sentence
 A question stem is preferable because it allows the
student to focus on answering the question rather than
holding the partial sentence in working memory and
sequentially completing it with each alternative (Statman
1988).
.

12. 6. unless important, avoid alternatives such as 'none of
the above' or 'all of the above'
• Usually run out of the ideas for plausible distractors
and want to create a final option.
• 'all of the above' - weak alternative
• The student simply has to find two defensible options
(without knowing the others) to realize that 'all of the
above' must be the keyed response.
• Student may read alternative A, recognize that is
correct, mark the answer, and never consider others
choices.

14. 1. Determine mental processes
 Response the desired thought processes in the minds
of the students (relates to learning outcome).
• Start the questions with such words or phrases.
• Compare, give reasons, predict what would happen
if... and others. Allow for original responses.
• Try to avoid with such words: what, when and list -
generally lead to the task that require recall information,
does not require complex thinking and reasoning

15. 2. Clearly define and situate the task within a
problem situation
 An effective essay question produces valid
evidence of the degree to which students have
achieved the intended learning outcome.
 Educators must avoid including vocabulary that is
too advanced for students.
 The following example demonstrates the
importance of carefully choosing directive verbs
to align the essay question with the intended
learning outcome.

17. 3. Specify the point value and an approximate time limit for each
question
•By providing the marks for each essay question, students can
estimate how much point that needed to be write. Student do not
have to give every point that they have to the essay question and
also will not wasting their time.
• Provide some rough estimates of how long the student should
spend on each question.
• Without the approximate time limit for each essay question,
students may feel at loss because they do not know how much time
to spend on an essay.
• When deciding how much time should be spent on a question,
keep the slower students and students with certain disabilities in
mind.

18. 4. Clearly define the intended learning outcome to be
assessed by the item
•Decide which of the following intended learning
outcomes lends itself better to be assessed by an essay
question.
• The following table show the example and
explanation.

19. 5. The essay task can be written as a statement or question
• The task can be presented either in the form of a direct question
or an imperative statement.
For example, the following illustrates the same essay item twice,
once as a question and once as an imperative statement.
Question : How are the processes of increasing production and
improving quality in a manufacturing plant similar or different
based on cost?
Imperative statement : Compare and contrast the processes of
increasing production and improving quality in a manufacturing
plant based on cost.
It shows that both essay items elicit the same performance from
the student (compare and contrast processes based on cost).
Whether essay questions are written as imperative statements or
questions, they should be written to align with the intended
outcome and in such a way that the task is clear to the students.

20. • Carneson, J., Delpierre, G., & Masters, K. (n.d.). Designing
and managing multiple-choice questions: Appendix B,
designing MCQs – do’s and don’ts. Retrieved July 7, 2006
from the University of Cape Town Web site:
http://www.uct.ac.za/projects/cbe/mcqman/mcqappb.html
• Haladyna, T. M. (1999). Developing and validating multiple-
choice test items, 2 nd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
• Ahmad Zamri bin Khairani & Lim Hoii Lian. Pentaksiran Di
Bilik Darjah (2012), Universiti Sains Malaysia.
• Christian M. Reiner, Timothy W. Bothell, Richard R.
Sudweeks, Bud Wood. Preparing Effective Essay Questions
(2002), News Forums Press.