EVALUATING STUDENT LEARNING
Section 8
Constructing Tests* One of the most important aspects of a successful learning experience is the opportunity for learners to demonstrate their growing understanding and receive feedback. At the same time, you can discover how effective you have been in facilitating your students' learning and can use this information to adjust your instructional practices. This section will first discuss general testing considerations, then give some guidelines for various testing procedures.
Selection of Test Material The selection of material to be tested should be based on learning objectives for the course; a thorough listing of those objectives can make test construction much easier. However, the complexity of the course material (and the limited time for exams) means that all objectives cannot be tested to the same depth. Writing good exam questions requires time for composition, review, and revision. If you jot down a few questions after class each day when the material is fresh in your mind, the exam is more likely to reflect your teaching emphases than if you wait to write all the questions later. Also, it is beneficial to ask a colleague to review the questions before you give the exam — another teacher might identify potential problems of interpretation or spot confusing language. The process of test development does not end when the students take the exam; careful analysis of the results will help refine your questions and sharpen your testing technique.
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning In a nutshell, these are the six levels of learning that B.H. Bloom identified, ranging from lower to higher order thinking: Knowledge
simply recalling factual information
Comprehension
understanding as displayed by the ability to reorganize or restate material
Application
problem solving or applying ideas and principles in a given situation
Analysis
separating ideas into component parts and recognizing how the parts are related
Synthesis
combining known ideas to yield a product that is new to the learner
Evaluation
using established standards or criteria to make judgments about the value or quality of ideas
Many professors have found it helpful to use a two-dimensional chart or matrix when planning an exam. Topics Recall
Learning Objectives Application Analysis Synthesis
Evaluation
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A. B. C. D. %Wt Instructional Development Program, University of Oklahoma