I.

The Objective Test Item

A. Supply Types - supply the answer
1. Short Answer

2. Completion

B. Selection Types – select the answer from a given number of alternatives

A. Matching

B. True or False or Alternative Response

C. Multiple Choice

II. The Essay Item

A. Extended-Response Essay Questions

B. Restricted-Response Essay Questions

 III. Other Types of Perfromance Assessment
(Oral presentations, construction of graps, use of equipment or scientific instruments, etc.)
The freedom provided by perfromance assessments enable students to display important skills
such as problem solving, planning, organization, integration, and creativity. Questions of this
type also provide an opportunity to observe student performance in more realistic contexts
compared with objective test items. On the other hand, they are time consuming to administer
and difficult to score.

Selecting The Most Appropriate Types of items and Tasks

A basic principle in selecting is to select the item type that provides the most direct measure of the
intended learning outcome. If, for example, the intended learning outcome is writing, naming, listing, or
identifying a correctanswer, the task should require the students to supply the answer. If the outcome
involves the use of laboratory equipment to solve a problem, then an actual laboratory performance
task will suffice.

Supply Types - supply the answer. The short answer and completion item are essentially the same, the
only difference is the method of presenting the problem. The short answer item uses a direct question,
whereas the completion item consists of an incomplete statement.
Short Answer: What is the name of the man who invented the steamboat? (Robert Fulton)
Completion: The name of the man who invented the steamboat is ___________. (Robert Fulton)

Advantages
 Easiest to conduct as it is almost exclusively to measure the recall of memorized information
 Since students must supply the answer, this reduces the possibility that the students will obtain
the correct answer by guessing.
Limitations
 Unsuitability for measuring complex learning outcomes
 Difficulty of scoring. Unless the question is carefully phrased, many answers of varying degree of
concerns must be considered for total or partial credit. For example, a question such as “Where
was George Washington born?” could be answered by the name of city, country, state, region or
continent.
Suggestions for Constructing Short-Answer Items
1. Word the item so that the required answer is both brief and specific
Poor: An animal that eats the flesh of other animals is ______________. (Carnivorous)
Better: An animal that eats the flesh of other animals is classified as ___________.
(Carnivorous)
The first version of this item can be completed with answers such as the wolf, the lion,
or even hungry.
2. Do not take statements directly from textbooks as basis for short-answer items
When taken out of context, some textbook statements are frequently too general and
ambiguous to serve as good short-answer items.
Poor: Chlorine is a ________. (Halogen)
Better: Chlorine belongs to a group of elements that combine with metals to form salts.
It is therefore called a __________. (Halogen)
Note the vagueness of the first version of the following test item, which was taken
verbatim from a chemistry textbook.
3. A direct question is generally more desirable than an incomplete statement.
First, it is more natural to students as it is the usual method of phrasing questions in
daily classroom discussions. Second, the direct question is usually better structured and
free and ambiguity.
Poor: John Glenn made his first orbital flight around the earth in _________. (1962)
Better: When did John Glenn made his first orbital flight around the earth? (1962)
Best: In what year did John Glenn made his first orbital flight around the earth? (1962)
4. Blanks for answers should be equal in length and in a column to the right of the question
If the blanks are equal in length, the length of the blank space will not serve as clue to
the answer.
Placing the blanks in a column in the right of the question makes scoring quicker and
more accurate

What is the name of the part of speech that connects words, clauses and sentences?
__________ (conjunction)
TRUE OR FALSE/ ALTERNATIVE RESPONSE
The alternative response items consists of a declarative statement that the student is asked to mark true
or false, right or wrong, correct or incorrect, yes or no, fact or opinion.
The Use of True-Falser Items
The most common use is the measuring of the ability to identify the correctness of statements of
principles, and the like.

Measuring the ability to distinguish fact from opinion

Advantages
 Efficiency. Students can typically respond to roughly three true-false items in the time it takes to
respond to two multiple-choice items (Ebel & Frisbie, 1991)
 Ease of construction
Limitations
 Not useful beyond the knowledge area. Many of the learning outcomes measured by a true-
false item can be better or more effectively measured by other forms of selection items,
especially the multiple-choice form
 Susceptibility to guessing. With only two alternatives, a student has 50/50 chance of selecting
the correct answer
 Student response pattern. There should be balance between true-false items without favouring
one element.
Suggestions for Constructing True-False items
1. Avoid general statements if they are to be judged true or false.
Most broad generalizations are false unless qualified, and the use of qualifiers provides
clues to the answer
Poor: The President of the United of States is elected to that office (False)
Poor: The President of the United of States is usually elected to that office (True)
2. Avoid trivial statements. In an attempt to obtain statements that are unequivocally true
or false
Poor: Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United of States
 Poor: The United of States declared war on Japan on December 7, 1941.
3. Avoid the use of negative statements, especially double negatives. Students tend to
overlook words such as no or not, and double negatives contribute to the statement’s
ambiguity.
Poor: None of the steps in the experiment was unnecessary. (False)
Better: All of the steps in the experiment were necessary. (False)
4. Avoid long, complex sentences
Poor: Despite the theoretical and experimental difficulties of determining the exact pH
value of a solution, it is possible to determine whether a solution is acid by the red color
formed on Litmus paper when it is inserted into the solution. (True)
Better: Litmus paper turns red in acid solution. (True)
5. Avoid including two ideas in one statement
Poor: A worm cannot see because it has simple eyes. (False)
6. If opinion is used, attribute it to some source, unless the ability to identify opinion is
being specifically measured
Poor: Adequate medical care can be best provided through socialized medicine. (False)
Better: The American Medical Association favors socialized medicine as best means of
providing adequate medical care. (False)
7. True statements and false statements should be approximately equal in length.
MATCHING
Uses of Matching Exercise
Measuring factual information based on simple associations. Examples of relationships:

Advantages
 Its compact form makes it possible to measure large amount of related factual material in a
relatively short time
 Ease of construction
Limitations
 Restricted to measurement of factual information based on rote learning
Suggestions for Constructing Matching Exercises
1. Use only homogenous material in a single matching exercise
 2. Include an unequal number of responses and instruct the students that responses may
be used once, more than once, or not at all.
This will make all the responses eligible for selection for each premise and will decrease
the likelihood of successful guessing.
3. Place the shorter responses on the right
This method allows students to read the responses rapidly and without confusion
4. Arrange the list of responses in logical order, words in alphabetical order and numbers
in sequence
This will contribute to the ease with which the students can scan the responses in
searching for all the correct answers
5. Place all the items for one matching exercise on the same page
MULTIPLE-CHOICE ITEMS
A multiple-choice item consists of a problem and a list of suggested solutions. The student is requested
to read the stem and the list if alternatives and to select the one correct or best alternative. The
remaining alternatives are distracters (also called decoy or foils).

Uses of Multiple-Choice Items

Most versatile type of test item available. It can measure a variety of learning outcomes, from simple to
complex and is adaptable to most types of subject-matter content.

Advantages
 Widely-applicable and flexible
 Greater reliability over true-false items
 Free from response sets
 Easier to conduct high-quality test items in multiple-choice form than in any other forms
Limitations
 Like other pen-and-paper tests, it is limited to learning outcomes at the verbal level
 Difficulty of finding sufficient number of incorrect but plausible distracters
Suggestions for Constructing Multiple-Choice Items
1. The stem should be meaningful by itself and should present a definite problem
2. The item stem should include as much of the item as possible and should be free of
irrelevant material

3. Use a negatively-stated stem only if the learning outcome requires it

4. All the alternatives should be grammatically consistent with the stem of the item

5. An item should contain only one correct or clearly best answer