EDUC

CHAPTER 12

TESTING STUDENTS Lizzie, Stephen, Liz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CqgnZhb--Q

“EXAMINATIONS are formidable, even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.” -CHARLES CALEB COLTON

TODAY'S OBJECTIVES

Introduction

Benefits of exams

Why should we use final exams

Different types of exams

Types of questions for objective tests

How to construct and provide quality exams

INTRODUCTION “This statement may be shocking but we love

evaluation. What may be even more shocking

is that students love being evaluated.” –

Beauchamp and Parsons

Its important to have a variety and large

number of evaluations (making many grades)

Often in a class with few evaluations, the odds

are stacked and biased against some students,

no matter how hard they work, because they

do not have the skills to succeed

BENEFITS OF EXAMS

They let students know where they are grade

wise.

They encourage students to do their best.

If students start to be successful in little things,

they gain more success in big things.

Parents will know where their kids stand (what

they are studying and how they are doing)

When students do well, they get to posture

their good grades to their parents, or others

who care.

Constant evaluation keeps students on task.

BENEFITS OF EXAMS (CONTINUED)

Constant evaluation helps students get better grades. When this happens, the class loses one of the reasons for conflict between teacher and students

The teacher and student can work cooperatively to “beat the exam.”

Having a large number of evaluations allows the teacher to justify grades, especially good grades, without hassle from administration

Smaller quizzes can be used as study guides for larger, comprehensive exams

Because different students have different abilities, a large number and variety of evaluations allow some students to succeed on one type while they may find others more difficult.

QUICK QUIZZES

A short quiz on a smaller amount of material.

The basic idea of a quick quiz is to test all the

important information within a section, not to

be selective.

Beauchamp and Parsons encourage teachers

to give a quick quiz for every chapter they use

in a textbook and to use a variety of different

quick quizzes.

The only real difference between review

activities and quick quizzes is that quick quizzes

are done without an open book.

WHY USE FINAL EXAMS

Exams give teachers a real idea of how their students are doing

Through the process of creating comprehensive exams, teachers make decisions about what content is worth knowing

A final exam helps students focus on what they are doing in the class

When students do well on comprehensive exams they are provided with a real sense of success and accomplishment

OBJECTIVE VS SUBJECTIVE

Objective...

Short answer exam,

Easier for students that know the material

Easy to grade

Subjective...

Final Essay exam

Tend to favour the smart students that have

good writing skills

Harder to grade

TYPES OF QUESTIONS FOR OBJECTIVE TESTING

Fill in the blank Questions provide a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ that

students must know to provide an answer

May make it _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _for students to guess

Students who have a difficult time reading and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ can have trouble with fill-in questions

May change it from fill in the blank to _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _to help the students out

These include the most important _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _from the unit

MULTIPLE CHOICE

Questions may be easy for example; a simple definition whereas more difficult ones that may include more than one choice for example; a and c might be correct

These exams are good because they correlate highly to the students knowledge, and also not biased against students with poor language skills.

TRUE OR FALSE

If the students know the information,

distinguishing between a true and false

statement is usually easy

True or False

Usually teachers make true or false questions

more difficult by having students tell why true

and false statements are true or false

True or False

True or false questions encourage students to

read the information carefully

True or False

MATCHING QUESTIONS

Teachers can cover all the important vocabulary terms and grade the questions quickly

Three hints on a good matching test

1) make matching in sections

2) you can discourage the

situation where the last few

matches are freebies

3) order each line from left to

right so that the space is first, the

definition is second and the

letter and term to be matched

are on the far right

a) adding extra choices

to the list of possible

definitions

b) makes it easier to

grade

c)no more than 25 terms

in a section, more than

this can confuse a

student

SHORT ANSWER Gives students structure for answering, but also

allows them more freedom in their answers

Short answer questions are best used for those concepts that are difficult to place in a shorter form

These questions offer teachers an opportunity to judge a students ability to reason or to synthesis information

Encourage students to answer in a more complex way

3 types of short answer

1) structured answer suggest that you know what or who these people or groups are

why these groups might be considered important

2) definitions and sentence define the following terms, after your definition, write a sentence that

uses the term you have defined in a real life context

3) synthesis

USING CLEAR DIRECTIONS

When writing exams, teachers should clearly explain what they want the students to be doing

An example of this type of question would be....

“Should the federal government support dictatorships in the middle east”

Good directions help guide student’s time through a test.

Example #1 – “Why has Western influence been so important to the growth of Japan?”

Example #2 – “In four sentences suggest why Western influence has been so important to the growth of Japan?”

USING CLEAR DIRECTIONS (CONTINUED)

Directions can encourage students to attend

to certain parts of the exam

No teacher should ever give an exam without

taking it first. Don’t assume your test is perfect

CONSTRUCTING A TEST

Make objective tests easy to grade...

If your right handed, place the space for the

answer near the left with stapling to the left

Be careful when making essay questions, as

they can be prone to problems.

If you can’t think of a thesis off the top of

your head, it’s probably not a good question

DIFFERENT TYPES OF QUESTIONS TO

CONSIDER

When creating an exam different types of

questions to consider would be

Short-answer fact based essay questions

Inference “thought” questions

Remembering the fact questions

Personal-opinion essay question

PREPARING TO GIVE THE TEST

Be sure that all students are prepared

physically

Be sure that all students are comfortable

Before beginning, specify how students should

ask questions

GIVING THE TEST

It is useful to read the test instructions aloud

before beginning the test

You should be available to answer questions

during the test

Avoid making disrupting noises during the test

To end the test in an organized fashion, you

should take up all remaining papers when time

is called

TEST SCORING

No matter if the test is objective or subjective, your scoring should always be as objective as possible

Make a key for scoring the test

If a large number of students miss a relatively easy question, be suspicious of the question

Invariably, subjective questions will draw responses that are not exactly right or wrong, when this occurs give partial marks

Conceal your student’s name while marking.