DEVELOPMENT OF SELECTION TYPE TEST ITEMS

1. TEST DEVELOPMENT AND
EVALUATION (6462)
DEVELOPMENT OF SELECTION TYPE TEST ITEMS
Department of Secondary Teacher Education
ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD

2. OBJECTIVES OF THE UNIT
After studying this unit, the students will have ability to demonstrate.
 understand, comprehend and apply the principles of selection type test
items.
 identify and evaluate these different methods of selection type test
items.
 construct different test items while keeping in mind their items criteria.

3. 5.1 NEED AND SCOPE OF SELECTION TYPE TEST ITEMS
 In selection type test items several possible answers/alternatives for each
question are already given and the students are only required to select the
correct or best answer in them instead of recalling facts or information from
their own memories.
 This type of test items consist of declarative statements in which the students
must point out the true or false, right or wrong or correct or incorrect
statements according to the directions of the test developer.
Selection type test items are generally consisted of the following types.
• Writing MCQs
• Matching Column
• True/False

4. MULTIPLE CHOICE ITEMS (MCQS)
A multiple-choice item is characterized by the following components:
• The stimulus presents the contextual information relevant to the item.
• The stem presents the question or prompt the student must answer.
• The options refer to the entire set of labelled response choices presented under the stem.
• The key is the correct response option.
• The distracters are the incorrect response options.

5. MULTIPLE CHOICE ITEMS (MCQS)
Characteristics of Multiple-Choice Items
• Versatility in measuring all levels of cognitive ability.
• Highly reliable test scores.
• Scoring efficiency and accuracy.
• Objective measurement of student achievement or ability.
• A wide sampling of contents or objectives.
• A reduced guessing factor when compared to true-false items.
• Incorrect response alternatives can provide diagnostic feedback.
Limitations in Using Multiple-Choice Items
• Are difficult and time consuming to construct.
• Lead an instructor to favour simple recall of facts.
• Place a high degree of dependence on the student's reading ability and instructor's writing ability.
• Frequently difficult to find plausible distracters.
• Scores can be influenced by reading ability.
• Often focus on testing factual information and fails to test higher levels of cognitive thinking.

6. 5.3 MATCHING COLUMN TEST ITEMS
Characteristics of Matching Items
• Require short periods of reading and response time, allowing you to cover more content.
• Provide objective measurement of student achievement or ability.
• Provide highly reliable test scores.
• Provide scoring efficiency and accuracy.
• Allow for great flexibility and accuracy in counting the learners’ scores.
• Give an objective assessment of the learners’ knowledge.
• At their most useful when used in areas mostly dealing with facts.
• Least chance of guessing the correct answer compared to other question types.
Limitations of Matching Items
• Have difficulty measuring learning objectives requiring more than simple recall of information.
• Are difficult to construct due to the problem of selecting a common set of stimuli and responses.
• Students can use rote memorization to answer these exercises
• Can be difficult to develop homogeneous premises and responses.

7. MATCHING COLUMN TEST ITEMS
Matching test items consist of
- A column of premises
- A column of responses
- Directions of matching the two.

8. 5.4 TRUE-FALSE TEST ITEMS
Advantages of True/False Items
1. Scoring efficiency and accuracy
2. Versatility in measuring all levels of cognitive
ability
3. Highly reliable test score
4. An objective measurement of student achievement
or ability
5. They are relatively easy to write and can be
answered quickly by students.
6. They provide the widest sampling of content per
unit of time.
Limitations of True/False Items
1. The problem of guessing is the major weakness.
Students have a fifty percent chance of correctly
answering an item without any knowledge of the
content.
2. Items are often ambiguous because of the difficulty
of writing statements that are unequivocally true or
false.
3. Do not discriminate between of students of varying
ability as well as other item types.
4. Can often include more irrelevant clues than do other
item types.
5. Can often lead a teacher to favour testing of trivial
knowledge.
For Example:
Simple: The acquisition of morality is a developmental process. True/ False
Complex: The acquisition of morality is a developmental process. True/ False opinion
Compound: The acquisition of morality is a developmental process. True/ False
If the statement is false, what makes it false?

9. 5.5 DEVELOPMENT OF
ITEM REVIEW CRITERIA
AND REVIEW OF THE
ITEMS

11. How to Write True/False
 Based true-false items upon statements that are absolutely true or false, without
qualifications or exceptions
 Express the items statement as simply as clearly as possible.
 Express a single idea in each test item.
 Include enough background information and qualifications so that the ability to
respond correctly to the item does not depend on some special, uncommon
knowledge.
 Avoid lifting statements from the text, lecture or other materials so that memory
alone will not permit a correct answer.
 Avoid using negatively stated item statements.
 Avoid trick questions.

12. Department of Secondary Teacher Education
ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD
Dr. Hina Jalal
hinansari23@gmail.com