Universidad Del Valle De Guatemala – Campus Altiplano

Facultad de Educación
Profesorado in Teaching EFL / ESL
Assessing Learning
Lic. William Morales

Tests Characteristics

One of the major goals of education is to prepare students for the next step in their
future. They have to make sure that their learners have acquired enough knowledge about
the field of study. Only good tests ensure this. A good test is not only a score that learners
struggle to ace.

It’s feedback a student receives to improve his skills and knowledge and a good teacher
loves to get back to, always, to make sure their teaching strategies are on point and whether
they need development or not. It’s also a feedback for decision-makers in all educational
institutions and governmental positions who need good data to get to the next step of the
institution or the State’s education plan.

It’s not something centric that students spend days of anxiety on, wondering how well they
will do in a given test and how well the test questions are actually written and whether they
are questions they do know the answer to or not.

What Are the Characteristics of a Good Test in Education?

What is a good test in education? It is an evaluation through which teachers measure

learners’ abilities and points of weaknesses and strengths. It gauges their knowledge in the
field of study and provides both sides with real feedback. A good test should ensure that
learners are ready to move to the next step whether this step is a high school, college, or
even the military.

What Are the Qualities of Good Assessment?

An assessment is a process through which students can share their educational

experiences. In order for a test to be a good tool for measuring students’ knowledge and
skills, it should have the following characteristics of examination that are essential for the
success of any test.

1. Reliability or Consistency
Reliability or consistency of a test means that learners should perform the same or get the
same score if they are exposed to different questions in different times and places. A test is
considered reliable when the same result is achieved over different tests. As James
Carlson mentions in his research memorandum, “The reliability of test scores is the extent
to which they are consistent across different occasions of testing, different editions of the
test, or different raters scoring the test taker’s responses.” He also mentions some statistics
to describe how a test can be reliable.
How to Make Sure Your Test Is Reliable?
1. Score Distribution: The percentage of test takers at each score level.
2. Mean Score: The average score, computed by summing the scores of all test
takers and dividing by the number of test takers.
3. Standard Deviation: A measure of the amount of variation in a set of scores. It
can be interpreted as the average distance of scores from the mean. (Actually, it
is a special kind of average called a “root mean square,” computed by squaring
the distance of each score from the mean score, averaging the squared distances,
and then taking the square root.)
4. Correlation: A measure of the strength and direction of the relationship between
the scores of the same people on two tests.

Reliability is the ratio of the true score and the observed score variance. To measure a test’s
reliability, we may administer a test to the same group more than once.
However, errors may occur as students may forget or have some physical problems. Thus,
it is crucial to administer the same test in identical conditions to ensure that we will get the
same results.

2. Validity
A validity of a test can be achieved when the test measures what it is really intended to
measure. Therefore, a certain criteria must be selected.
Validity is very important to gauge the quality of a given test as questions must be in line
with the selected criteria and measures.

Here are some of the top different types of validity:

Content Validity: A test should fairly represent the content of the course or the field of study.
Criterion Validity: It is used to predict the performance of a job applicant or a student.
Convergent validity: This is mostly used in the field of sociology or psychology.
Discriminant Validity: Discriminant validity means that a test of a concept is not highly
correlated with other tests that are set to measure theoretically different concepts.

3. Objectivity
According to Gronlund and Linn “Objectivity of a test refers to the degree to which equally
competent scores obtain the same results,” the test should be away from any personal or
subjective judgment. It should be based only on the evaluation of human development. For
example, in an essay-type test, students answer differently as each one has his/her own
style of writing.

Hence, when more than one instructor check the test, they may give different scores
according to whether they like the style or not. So, here, the test is less objective. To avoid
such bias, sharp rules should be set in evaluating such types of tests. There should be a
unified guide for teachers to use while correcting such tests. Personal judgment does not
occur in true or false or multiple choice tests. Besides, teachers should receive training on
how to score a test as untrained teachers may give wrong scores and not be able to maintain
the required fairness and accuracy.
 4. Comprehensiveness
A test should fully cover the entire field of study that students are exposed to during the
course. Vague questions should not be included especially during online tests when
students are confused and short in time.

5. Absence of Ambiguity
There has to be no place for ambiguity especially in online tests where examiners are
absent. Students should not be left in confusion and all questions have to be crystal clear.
According to Jacobs, Lucy C., from Indiana University, “ambiguous questions constitute the
major weakness in college tests.

Ambiguous questions often result when instructors put off writing test questions until the last
minute. Careful editing and an independent review of the test items can help to minimize
this problem.”

6. Preparation
To ensure the success of any test, instructors should take into consideration the following
factors:
• Students have to be well-prepared for the test through extensive revisions and
discussions.
• There should not be any gaps between the revision period and the exam.
• Examiners should make it clear to students which topics are expected to be
tackled in the exam.
• Students should be well-trained for the test type.

7. Appropriateness of Time
One of the top characteristics of a good test is when students have appropriate time to
answer all questions. For example, essay questions require more time than multiple choice
or true/false questions.
Some teachers take the test themselves first and then double or triple the time for students.
A good test is supposed to be practical and comprehensive.

How Do I Write a Good Test?

• Be specific
• Do not use ambiguous questions.
• Choose a suitable format for your test.
• Avoid the open-ended questions unless you are willing to accept any answer.
• Choose your words carefully and avoid any ambiguous language.
• Students should know how much each of the questions are worth.

To conclude, teachers should create their exams away from any subjectivity, ambiguity, or
lack of comprehensiveness. The appropriate format should be selected to match the course
materials and to measure students’ knowledge and skills.
15 Things You Need to Know about the Characteristics of a Good Test in Education

Here are 15 tips the American Board concluded with:

1. Bloom’s theory of educational objectives classification, in which cognitive skills

exist in a hierarchical order, is important in any assessment.
2. Assessment works better when they are ongoing and integrated into instruction as
opposed to episodic and marginally referenced to classroom instruction.
3. Lots of faculty members use MCQs for their classes because they are able to
cover much greater content and in a very short period of time; plus they’re known
to be very easy, compared to other questions, and are quick to score.
4. Many professors and test managers prefer to use other types of tests to to assess
their students/examinees: essay, papers or electronic portfolios, projects,
presentations tests.
5. Both views are not incorrect! However, a great teacher would use all of the
previously mentioned assessment forms throughout the academic year.
6. The value of tests is much greater and more pronounced when they are performed
as a part of a completely comprehensive program that’s designed to enhance
learning, progress, performance, and the educational institution’s success
7. “A comprehensive assessment-instruction system should contain a variety of
assessment techniques.”
8. A test can only test what it was formed to assess. So it’s up to the decision-makers
to process the data generated from it.
9. Summative assessments are called “assessments of learning,” and formative
assessments are called “assessment for learning.”
10. There should always be a balance between the intellectual skills being assessed.
11. Specific and descriptive instructional feedback that will help students to improve
their learning and prepare for mastery of the curricular topics are central to
effective formative assessments.
12. Frequent short tests are more instructionally helpful and provide better
assessment data than infrequent extended exams.
13. Diagnostic assessments measure a student’s current knowledge and skills for the
purpose of identifying a personalized program of learning for that student.
14. Quality assessments are valid, reliable and unbiased.
15. A test is no better than the quality of items it contains.

Taken from: https://blog.qorrectassess.com/characteristics-of-good-test-in-education/