Objective test items Briefly discuss the mistakes made by evaluators when phrasing true-false items.
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Evaluators usually make a mistake of writing opinion statement and not factual statements. Opinions are neither obviously true nor obviously false. When an opinion statement is written, it should include a referent that will make it to be acceptable.
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Absolute words like never, always, only, altogether and all should not be used, they should rather be substituted with less absolute.
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Indefinite words like large, regularly, many, etc. should be avoided.
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The use of double negatives should be avoided as it confuses the learner more.
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When a negative is used, it should always be highlighted by means of italics, underlining or uppercase so that the learner cannot overlook it – the negative.
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Double barreled test items are a no – no as it may confuses the learner as to which of the two statements should be marked ‘True’ and which should be marked ‘False’.
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Briefly discuss the mistakes made by evaluators when phrasing matching items. •
Evaluators usually do not give sufficient directions. The directions should indicate how the matches should be made, example – like matching letters from one column to the appropriate number in another column.
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Evaluators usually provide equal descriptions in ‘column A’ and equal options in ‘Column’ B, this encourages the learner to guess the correct answer by elimination as the learner can match all the descriptions to the options that he or she is quite sure of, and ultimately be left with one description and the one option, which of course will be the correct answer.
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The other mistakes is to put the descriptions on the right hand column and the options in the left hand column,
this is a tedious task for the learner as a person reads from left to right and not vice versa. •
The evaluators often overlook the element of homogeneity in test items. They write heterogeneous test items.
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The evaluators often do not write the options in alphabetical, numerical or chronological order.
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The evaluators often make the mistakes of not numbering the descriptions and not identifying the option with a letter.
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Briefly discuss the mistakes made by evaluators when phrasing multiple- choice items. •
The mistake committed in this type of test items is that the evaluator can make use of a grammatical clue to a question, which will make it possible for the learner to correctly answer the question with the language knowledge he or she possesses and not the content.
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The evaluator should not use a test item which has a multiple defensible answers.
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They usually commit a mistake of repeating the words used in the stem in the options.
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They also commit errors of providing options that are usually not in chronological, numerical or alphabetical order.
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They usually resort to the use of options such as ‘All of the above, none of the above’.
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The evaluators usually make use of stem clues which are repeated in both the stem and the options or response alternatives. This gives the correct option away as it clues the student as to which option is the correct one.
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The mistake that can also be committed is not presenting a problem or not focusing the test item.
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The other mistake is the one where evaluators write opinionated stem, without providing the referent as a base of reference.
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4
Evaluators sometimes incorporate the use of negatives without highlighting the negatives by means of underlining, italics or uppercase.
Briefly discuss the mistakes made by evaluators when phrasing completion items. •
Evaluators sometimes do not use specifics.
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The blank is sometimes put at the beginning of the sentence which confuses the person who is taking the test.
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The other mistake is providing more than one blank.
5
Briefly discuss approaches that can be followed when phrasing higher level multiple-choice items. 5.1 Higher order questions in multiple – choice test items may be formulated by: •
Incorporating the use of stimuli like pictures, graphs and tables.
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Using analogies that demonstrate the relationships among terms.
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Using the application of previously learned principle or procedure to novel situations.