OCTOBER 24, 2019

Seminar on
Table of Specifications relative to
Constructing Test Questions
 Table of Specifications (TOS)
• A two way chart that relates the
learning outcomes to the course
content
• It enables the teacher to prepare a test
containing a representative sample of
student behavior in each of the areas
tested.
Tips in Preparing the Table of Specifications
(TOS)
• Don’t make it overly detailed.
• It's best to identify major ideas and skills rather
than specific details.
• Use a cognitive taxonomy that is most appropriate
to your discipline.
• Weigh the appropriateness of the distribution of checks
against the students' level, the importance of the test,
the amount of time available.
 REVISED BLOOM’S
TAXONOMY:
“Pathway to Improve Thinking”
 What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification of
thinking organized by levels of complexity. It gives
teachers and students an opportunity to learn and
practice a range of thinking and provides a simple
structure for many different kinds of questions.
 What is REVISED BLOOM’S TAXONOMY?
The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy provides
the measurement tool for thinking. The
changes in RBT occur in three broad
categories.
 1. Terminology Changes

Evaluation Creating
Synthesis Evaluating
Analysis Analyzing
Application Applying
Comprehension Understanding
Knowledge Remembering

1956 2001

(Based on Pohl, 2000, Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn, p.8)

Many of the verbs in this section are in the form of
questions. This level of questioning is to ensure that
the students learned specific information from the
lesson.
Samples questions for
What do you remember about _____?
How would you define_____?
How would you identify _____?
How would you recognize _____?
 Define Samples questions for
Define mercantilism.
 Who
Who was the author of the Billy Budd?
 What
What is the capital of Philippines?
 Name
Name the inventor of the telephone.
 List
List the 7 continents.
 Label Samples questions for
Label the capitals on this map of the United States.
 Locate
Locate the glossary in your textbook.
 Match
Match the following inventors with their inventions.
 Select
Select the correct author of War and Peace from the
following list.
 Underline
Underline the noun.
The learner understands what the facts mean. This level
should allow to see if the students understand the main
idea and are able to interpret or summarize the ideas in
their own words.
Samples questions for

How would you generalize_____?

How would you express _____?
What can you infer from _____?
What did you observe_____?
 Sample Questions for Understanding
 Explain
Explain the law of inertia using an example from an amusement park.
 Interpret
Interpret the information found in this pie chart.
 Outline
Outline the main arguments for and against year-round education.
 Discuss
Discuss what it means to use context to determine the meaning of a
word.
 Translate
Translate this passage into English.
 Sample Questions for Understanding
 Restate
Restate the steps for a bill to become a law in your own words.
 Describe
Describe what is happening in this Civil War picture.
 Identify
Identify the correct method for disposing of recyclable trash.
 Which
Which statements support implementing school uniforms?
 Summarize
Summarize the first chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Students must show that they can apply the
information they have learned. Students can
demonstrate their grasp of the material by
solving problems and creating projects.

Sample questions for Applying:

•How would you demonstrate ____?
•How would you present ____?
•How would you change ____?
•How would you modify ____?
 Sample Questions for Applying
 Solve
Using the information you have learned about mixed numbers, solve
the following questions.
 Use
Use Newton's Laws of Motion to explain how a model rocket works.
 Predict
Predict whether items float better in fresh water or salt water.
 Construct
Using the information you have learned about aerodynamics,
construct a paper airplane that minimizes drag.
 Sample Questions for Applying
 Perform
Create and perform a skit that dramatizes an event from the civil rights
era.
 Demonstrate
Demonstrate how changing the location of the fulcrum affects a tabletop
lever.
 Classify
Classify each observed mineral based on the criteria learned in class.
 Apply
Apply the rule of 70 to determine how quickly $1,000 would double if
earning 5 percent interest.
• Students move beyond simply understanding and applying
knowledge. At the Analysis level, they begin to take a more active
role in their own learning.

•How can you sort the parts _____?

•What can you infer_____?
•What ideas validate _____?
•How would you explain _____?
 Sample Questions for Analyzing
 What?
What is the function of the liver in the body?
What is the main idea of the story "The Tell-Tale Heart"?
What assumptions do we have to make when discussing Einstein's
Theory of Relativity?
 Analyze
Analyze President Lincoln's motives for delivering the Gettysburg
Address.
 Sample Questions for Analyzing
 Identify
Identify any biases that might exist when reading an
autobiography.
 Examine
Examine the results of your experiment and record your
conclusions.
 Investigate
Investigate the propaganda techniques used in each of
the following advertisements.
• Evaluating means that students make judgments based on the
information they have learned as well as their own insights.

•What criteria would you use to assess

_____?
•What data were used to evaluate _____?
•How could you verify _____?
•What information would you use to
prioritize _____?
 Evaluate
Evaluate the accuracy of the movie The Patriot.
 Find
Find the errors in the following math problem.
 Select
Select the most appropriate action that you should take against a
school bully. Justify your answer.
 Decide
Decide on a meal plan for the next week that includes all the
required servings according to the Food Guide Pyramid.
 Justify
Are the arts an important part of a school's
curriculum? Justify your answer.
 Debate
Debate the pros and cons of charter schools.
 Judge
Judge the importance of students reading a play by
Shakespeare while in high school.
Students move beyond relying on previously learned
information and analyzing items that the teacher has
given them. Instead, they create new products, ideas,
and theories.

•What alternative would you suggest for ___?

•What changes would you make to revise___?
•How would you generate a plan to ___?
•What could you invent___?
 Sample Questions for Creating
 Create
Create a haiku about a desert animal.
Invent
Invent a new board game about Industrial Revolution inventors.
Compose
Compose a new piece of music that includes chords in the key
of C major.
Propose
Propose an alternative way to get students to clean up after
themselves in the lunchroom.
 Sample Questions for Creating
 Plan
Plan an alternative meal to serve vegetarians during
Thanksgiving.
 Design
Design a campaign to help stop teenage smoking.
 Formulate
Formulate a bill that you would like to see passed in
Congress.
 Develop
Develop an idea for a science fair project that focuses on
the effects of pollution on plant life.
 B. STRUCTURAL CHANGES
Bloom’s original cognitive taxonomy was a one-
dimensional form consisting of Factual, Conceptual
and Procedural – but these were never fully
understood for use by the teachers because most of
what educators were given in training consisted of
a simple chart with the listing of levels and
related accompanying verbs.
The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy takes the form of
Two-dimensional table. The Knowledge Dimension or the kind of
knowledge to be learned and second is the Cognitive Process
Dimension or the process used to learn.
The The Cognitive Process Dimensions
Knowledge
Dimensions Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating

Factual

Conceptual

Procedural

Metacognitive
 • Factual Knowledge
- Refers to the essential facts,
terminology, details or elements
student must know or be familiar
with in order to solve a problem in
it.
 • Conceptual Knowledge
- is knowledge of classification,
principles,generalizations, theories,
models or structure pertinent to a
particular disciplinary area.
 • Procedural Knowledge
- Refers to information or knowledge that helps
students to do something specific to a
discipline subject, area of study.
- It also refers to methods of inquiry, very
specific or finite skills, algorithms,
techniques and particulars.
 • Meta-cognitive Knowledge
- is a strategic or reflective
knowledge about how to go solving
problems, cognitive tasks to include
contextual and conditional knowledge
and knowledge of self.
 • C. CHANGE IN EMPHASIS
Emphasis is the third and final category
of changes. It is placed upon its use as
a more “authentic tool for curriculum
planning, instructional delivery and
assessment”.
• More authentic tool for curriculum
planning, instructional delivery
and assessment
• Aimed at a broader audience
• Easily applied to all levels of
schooling
• The revision emphasizes explanation
and description of subcategories.
 BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY Suggested Percentage
Allocation
CREATING
Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things
10%
Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing

Higher-order EVALUATING
Justifying a decision or course of action 30%
Thinking 10%
Checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging

ANALYZING
Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and
relationships 10%
Comparing, organizing, deconstructing, interrogating, finding.

APPLYING
Using information in another familiar situation 20%
Implementing, carrying out, using, executing

UNDERSTANDING
Explaining ideas or concepts 20%
Interpreting, summarizing, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining

REMEMBERING 30%
Recalling information
Recognizing, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding.
How to Construct Table of Specification

1.Determine the desired number of test

items.
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

TOTAL
50
 How to Construct Table of Specification

2. List the topics with the

corresponding allocation of time

• The reference is the budgeted lesson.

 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3
2. 4
3. 1
4. 6
5. 8
6. 5
7. 8
8. 2
9. 4
10. 4
45
TOTAL
50
 How to Construct Table of Specification

3. Determine the total number of items per topic by using the

formula:
Time Spent / Frequency per topic divided by the total number
of frequency in the grading period times total number of
items.
Time Spent / Frequency per Topic
Total Frequency in the grading period Total Number
Example: of items
3
45 50 = 3.33
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 3.33
2. 4 4.44
3. 1 1.11
4. 6 6.66
5. 8 8.88
6. 5 5.55
7. 8 8.88
8. 2 2.22
9. 4 4.44
10. 4 4.44
45 49.95
TOTAL
50
 How to Construct Table of Specification

4. Round off the value to become whole

numbers.
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 3.33 3
2. 4 4.44 4
3. 1 1.11 1
4. 6 6.66 7
5. 8 8.88 9
6. 5 5.55 6
7. 8 8.88 9
8. 2 2.22 2
9. 4 4.44 4
10. 4 4.44 4
45 49.95 49
TOTAL
50
 How to Construct Table of Specification

5. Adjust or Balance by either adding or

subtracting (any of the topic totals) so
that the sum will amount to the desired
number of test items.
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 3.33 3
2. 4 4.44 4
3. 1 1.11 1+1
4. 6 6.66 7
5. 8 8.88 9
6. 5 5.55 6
7. 8 8.88 9
8. 2 2.22 2
9. 4 4.44 4
10. 4 4.44 4
45 49.95 49
TOTAL
50
 How to Construct Table of Specification

6. Scatter the items per topic per domain

• Determine the number of items per

complexity / level of cognitive domain.In
this case, we have already a pre-computed
value of 30-20-20-30 (10-10-10)
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 3.33 3
2. 4 4.44 4
3. 1 1.11 1+1
4. 6 6.66 7
5. 8 8.88 9
6. 5 5.55 6
7. 8 8.88 9
8. 2 2.22 2
9. 4 4.44 4
10. 4 4.44 4
45 15 10 10 5 5 5 49.95 49
TOTAL
30% 20% 20% 30% ( Higher-order Thinking) 50
 How to Construct Table of Specification

7. On the basis of your experience / analysis start allocating the

items with respect to the total number of items per domain and the
total number of items per topic beginning with the higher-order
thinking domains down to remembering. It is suggested that the
order of complexity from creating to remembering is not altered.
• Review the topics, reflect on previous experiences, and imagine
the teaching learning processes (TLP) that can go with the
topics. You may use teaching guides and other similar
materials.
• Be mindful of the total points per topic.
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 3.33 3
2. 4 4.44 4
3. 1 1.11 1+1
4. 6 1 6.66 7
5. 8 2 8.88 9
6. 5 5.55 6
7. 8 2 8.88 9
8. 2 2.22 2
9. 4 4.44 4
10. 4 4.44 4
45 15 10 10 5 5 5 49.95 49
TOTAL
50
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 3.33 3
2. 4 1 4.44 4
3. 1 1.11 1+1
4. 6 1 1 6.66 7
5. 8 2 8.88 9
6. 5 2 5.55 6
7. 8 2 8.88 9
8. 2 2.22 2
9. 4 1 4.44 4
10. 4 4.44 4
45 15 10 10 5 5 5 49.95 49
TOTAL
50
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 1 3.33 3
2. 4 1 1 4.44 4
3. 1 1.11 1+1
4. 6 1 1 6.66 7
5. 8 2 2 8.88 9
6. 5 2 5.55 6
7. 8 2 8.88 9
8. 2 2.22 2
9. 4 1 4.44 4
10. 4 1 4.44 4
45 15 10 10 5 5 5 49.95 49
TOTAL
50
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 1 1 3.33 3
2. 4 1 1 1 4.44 4
3. 1 1.11 1+1
4. 6 2 1 1 6.66 7
5. 8 2 2 8.88 9
6. 5 2 5.55 6
7. 8 2 2 8.88 9
8. 2 1 2.22 2
9. 4 2 1 4.44 4
10. 4 1 1 4.44 4
45 15 10 10 5 5 5 49.95 49
TOTAL
50
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 1 1 3.33 3
2. 4 1 1 1 4.44 4
3. 1 1 1.11 1+1
4. 6 2 2 1 1 6.66 7
5. 8 2 2 2 8.88 9
6. 5 2 2 5.55 6
7. 8 2 2 2 8.88 9
8. 2 1 2.22 2
9. 4 2 1 4.44 4
10. 4 1 1 1 4.44 4
45 15 10 10 5 5 5 49.95 49
TOTAL
50
 TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
Subject Grade Grading period
School Year DOMAINS Total Number
Time
Topic Spent/ Of Test items
Frequency Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating Actual Adjusted
1. 3 1 1 1 3.33 3
2. 4 1 1 1 1 4.44 4
3. 1 2 1.11 1+1
4. 6 2 1 2 1 1 6.66 7
5. 8 3 2 2 2 8.88 9
6. 5 2 2 2 5.55 6
7. 8 3 2 2 2 8.88 9
8. 2 1 1 2.22 2
9. 4 1 2 1 4.44 4
10. 4 1 1 1 1 4.44 4
49.95 49
TOTAL 45 15 10 10 5 5 5
50
 Item Placement
A. Items 1-15 (Type of Question is to measure remembering which
cut across all topics within the grading period.)

B. Items 16-25 (Type of Question is to measure understanding…)

C. Items 26-35 (Type of Question is to measure applying…)

D. Items 36-40 (Type of Question is to measure analyzing..)

E. Items 41-45 (Type of Question is to measure evaluating…)

F. Items 46-50 (Type of Question is to measure creating…)