Rational for Tests:

Measures of student performance (testing) may have as many as five purposes:

Student Placement,

Diagnosis of Difficulties,

Checking Student Progress,

Reports to Student and Superiors,

Evaluation of Instruction.

Unfortunately the most common perception is that tests are designed to statistically rank all
students according to a sampling of their knowledge of a subject and to report that ranking to
superiors or anyone else interested in using that information to adversely influence the student's
feeling of self-worth. It is even more unfortunate that the perception matches reality in the
majority of testing situations. Consequently tests are highly stressful anxiety producing events
for most persons.
All too often tests are constructed to determine how much a student knows rather than
determining what he/she must learn. Frequently tests are designed to "trap" the student and in
still other situations tests are designed to insure a "bell curve" distribution of results. Most of the
other numerous testing designs and strategies fail to help the student in his learning process and
in many cases are quite detrimental to that process.
In a Mastery Based system of instruction the two main reasons for testing are to determine
mastery and to diagnose difficulties. When tests are constructed for these purposes, the other four
purposes will also be satisfied. For example, consider a test which requires the student to
demonstrate mastery and at the same time rigorously diagnoses learning difficulties. If no
difficulties are indicated, it may be safely assumed that the learner has mastered the concept.
That information may then be used to record student progress and to make reports to the student
and superiors. Examining student performance collectively for a group of students provides
information about the quality of instruction. Examining a single student's performance
collectively for a group of learning objectives may be used to determine proper placement within
that group of learning objectives.
It is therefore important that the instructional developer construct each question so that a correct
response indicates mastery of the learning objective and any incorrect response provides
information about the nature of the student's lack of mastery. Furthermore, each student should
have ample opportunity to "inform" the instructor of any form of lack of mastery. Unfortunately
the mere presence of a test question influences the student's response to the question. The
developer should minimize that influence by constructing questions which permit the student to
make any error he would make in the absence of such influence. For example, a multiple choice
question should have all the wrong answers the student might want to select and should also have
as many correct answers as the student might want to provide.
True/False Questions:
True/false questions should be written without ambiguity. That is, the statement of the question
should be clear and the decision whether the statement is true or false should not depend on an

obscure interpretation of the statement. A true/false question may easily be used, and most
commonly is used, to determine if the student recalls facts. However, a true/false question may
also be used to determine if the learner has mastered the learning objective well enough to
correctly analyze a statement.
It is important to be aware that only two choices are available to the student and therefore the
nature of the question gives the student a 50% chance of being correct. A single True/False
question therefore is helpful only if the student answers the question incorrectly and the incorrect
response indicates a specific misunderstanding of the learning objective. A collection of
true/false questions, about a single learning objective, all answered correctly by a student is a
much stronger indication of mastery. It is therefore important that the instructional developer
construct a "test bank" containing a large number of true/false questions. It is also important to
include numerous true/false questions on any test which utilizes true/false questions.
Ideally a true/false question should be constructed so that an incorrect response indicates
something about the student's misunderstanding of the learning objective. This may be a difficult
task, especially when constructing a true statement. The instructional developer should try to
accomplish the ideal, but should recognize that in some instances he/she will not reach that goal.
Multiple Choice Questions:
Multiple choice questions should be written without ambiguity. That is, the statement of the
question stem should be clear and should leave no doubt about how to select choices.
Additionally the choices should be written without ambiguity and should contain all information
required to make a decision whether or not to choose it. The decision whether to select or not
select a choice should not depend on an obscure interpretation of either the stem or the choice. A
multiple choice question may easily be used to determine if the student recalls facts. However, a
multiple choice question may also be used to determine if the student has mastered the learning
objective well enough to correctly analyze a statement.
The instructional developer should not construct multiple choice questions with a uniform
number of choices, a uniform number of valid choices, or any other recognizable pattern for
construction of choices. Instead the instructional developer should include as many valid and
invalid choices as is required to determine the student's deficiencies with respect to the learning
objective. Moreover, each choice should appear to be a valid choice to some student.
Multiple choice questions should therefore contain any number of choices with one or more valid
choices. The student is of course required to select all valid choices and failure to select any one
of the valid choices will provide information about the student's misunderstanding of the learning
objective in the same way that selection of an invalid choice reveals the nature of his/her
misunderstanding.
The nature of the choices provided in a multiple choice question may be of two types: those
which require merely recall of facts and those which require additionally activity such as
synthesis, analysis, computation, comparison, or diagramming. The instructional developer who
is seriously concerned with the student's success will use both types extensively.
Fill-in-the-Blank Questions:
The temptation, when constructing fillintheblank questions, is to construct traps for the student.
The instructional developer should avoid this problem. Ensure that there is only one acceptable
word for the student to provide and that the word (or words) is significant. Avoid asking the

student to supply "minor" words. Avoid fillintheblank question with so many blanks that the
student is unable to determine what is to be completed.
Sometime/Always/Never Questions:
The collection of Sometime/Always/Never (referred to as SAN) statements are statements which
are: true sometimes, always true, and never true. The statements used in these questions must be
stated carefully and should contain enough information to permit the student to decide whether
the statement is true sometimes, always, or never.
SAN questions (especially the sometimes statements) are the most difficult to construct but can
be the most significant part of a test. SAN questions should be constructed to force the student to
engage in some critical thinking about the learning objective. When used properly, SAN
questions force the student to consider important details about the learning objective. Careful use
of this type of question and careful analysis of student's response will provide detailed
information about some of the student's deficiencies.
SAN questions are especially appropriate, and easy to construct, for learning objectives
addressing concepts which are "black" or "white" except in a few cases. The true statements in a
collection of true/false questions are of course always true statements while the set of false
statement may be further subdivided into those which are true sometimes and those which are
never true.