FIAE+B2+Chapter+6

Abstract - Scott A. Bowden
This chapter discussed good test questions. Many of the examples given deal with comparing bad test questions with good ones. The chapter suggests picking many different kinds of [|questions for examination]. When using True/False or Multiple choice questions, it suggests not using a pattern in answers like abcdabcd or TTFFTTFFTTFF because then the students may focus on copying the pattern than by knowing the content. These questions are suggested to not be used primarily because students may guess their way into a right answer and not really know or understand the material. It suggests keeping efficient for students by allowing them to merely circle T or F on true/false or by keeping all the words for matching questions on the opposite side of the questions. Tests should have some fun questions and possibly include the student's names or fun facts from everyday life. In summation, it heavily reinforces not using one kind of question as that is often not a good representation of what students actually know.

Synthesis - Scott A. Bowden
Most everybody agreed on one simple fact, that nobody wants to trick their students. They want to teach using all different kinds of questions. The aspect of the chapter that most people liked was putting T or F on the test itself instead of letting the student write in the word. The general consensus about the chapter was they intend to mix up their test and do a lot of [|different question types] (e.g. not putting all T/F, Multiple Choice, or short essay), but to put each of those kinds of questions on it and use them in moderation. Another common idea was the avoiding of negative statements and avoiding tricky wording. Everyone said that the learning was for the student and wanted to put questions on their test that would accurately reflect the understandings of their students. Another point of interest was some people entertained the notion of using multiple or smaller tests than by putting one major test at the end of the unit. In general, this chapter made people consider other possibilities than the traditional method of True/False or MC testing for students. They were all interested in making different kinds of tests.

Jared Merrifield
Chapter 6: Creating Good Test Questions

As always, the introduction to this chapter was full of truth and revelation. I hate it when teachers devise tests when in reality they have no idea how to create effective or even sensible test questions. Too many teachers assume that the students will know what the question means only because the //teacher// knows what it means! Personally, I enjoy a test that has a variety of different styled questions (true/false, multiple choice, short essay); that way, there’s plenty of opportunity for correctness. Also, a good variety is surely suitable for several different learning styles and intelligences, and as the book says, it gives teachers a better understanding of student mastery. It’s also important to make the instructions on a test clear, and teachers should strongly encourage good instruction-reading. I remember a few of my teachers tested the students’ dedication to directions by giving us those tests that begin with “Read all the instructions before beginning.” Most of the students completed each step right after reading it (myself included), whereas the more attentive students read over all the directions until they got to, say, step nine, where the student was congratulated and given one single step to complete, disregarding all the others. The same goes for confusing negatives; I cannot recall the number of times a teacher has complained about a student giving the wrong answer on a test question because of the teacher’s own mediocre question structure. If I ever use negatives on a test, I will try to be concise and use them in strict moderation. I have seen many of the other concepts in action (and inaction) as well. I have always appreciated teachers putting a little fun into tests; I remember my fifth-grade teacher would incorporate student’s names into every test she handed out, and somehow this tiny little adjustment made the test more enjoyable. I also appreciate the format of tests for efficient grading. Some of my more gracious teachers have incorporated the “possible points attainable” right on the test paper, so the students can garner a rough idea of what grade to expect. However, the answer sheet format has never been a favorite of mine, for I know too well of the confusion and messiness it can cause. I will try to refrain from using such a format whenever I can. The special questions are an interesting concept as well. I have taken tests before that end with questions such as “Was this test what you expected?” and “How well do you think you did?” These can help the students reflect on what they have learned, what they have not yet learned, and how much effort they put into learning the material.

Alicia Kenison
When do I compose a test with multiple choice questions or an essay assessment? How do I know when I have asked enough questions or too many? Wormeli answered all these questions in this chapter, but still left me wondering when is the perfect time to assess and grade. I like how he wants us to mix it up and use some traditional and some non-traditional prompts. Most teachers in my high school, I could read like a book, he’s going to ask for an essay and she’s going to have a multiple choice test and she’s going to mix all the traditional ways. I want to be the teacher that they always know what is on the test, but in which the test set-up always changes. I really disagree with the double recording because it makes cheating much easier. I understand how the teacher should make different tests for each of their classes, but should I burden myself with more work if the students will just forget the information after they take the test? I believe most teachers don’t actually assess what they planned because they get too creative. Wormeli suggests several ways to stay on task that I may end up referring back to when I become a teacher myself.

Sarah Robinson
As a teacher creating good test questions is very serious to your students success. This chapter has taught me a lot about how to make good test questions. First I have learned and agree that tests should not play games with student’s heads when taking the test. This chapter has taught me that to make a good test you must have a good mixture of traditional and non-traditional questions. I have learned through this chapter the difference between traditional and non-traditional questions. Traditional questions are matching and true/false questions and non-traditional questions are drawings and diagrams. By using a mixture of different types of questions teachers are able to understand better how much of the subject their students have mastered. From this chapter I have realized that in my classroom I must make sure that my test are easy for my students to take. This includes making sure that it is not confusing and easy to understand. This book has also taught me that not to use negatives in my test questions because it will just add more stress for my students taking the test. As a student in high school I hated being pressured to finish a test in a certain amount of time, and as a teacher I will keep my tests short and allow all the time they need to take it. I have also learned through reading this chapter that you have to make sure your questions are assessing what should be master by students. As a teacher it will be very important for me to test my students often so no test ever becomes too long, because longer the test is, it adds too much stress for the students.

Mike Lawson
Chapter 6: Fair Isn’t Always Equal 2/3/10

Creating test questions is something that I also think develops in time. From the start creating questions won’t be hard because as the teacher you know the information that is important to the lesson plan. However, great test questions are sometimes hard to come by. The example at the beginning of the chapter is a perfect example of how test questions are too broad for one specific answer. I would hate the feeling of there being a tricky question for the students in my class to have to guess on. I feel that I am teaching them the information so they have a clear idea of what it is in their head. So by making them have to choose from two questions that really could be right and simply have one correct answer I would make them questions what they really know. Transforming traditional, multiple answer testing into a more differentiated form of testing would be optimal for students. These tests would allow not only teachers but students and parents to see how well they are doing. I have always been a fan of True or False questions. They are factual and efficient. I stated in my essential beliefs statement that I wanted to be an efficient teacher and I think I will implement factual testing, as I like to call it, into my class quite a bit.

Scott Bowden
I really liked this chapter because it gave me insight into testing. I've always considered picking questions for tests as relatively easy without thinking about the students. (And yes, I have made informal tests throughout my career as a student that I might consider using as a teacher. So all these answers are in the "practical" case, and not the hypothetical.) The examples I thought about were random and mostly numbers that came off the top of my head that I rarely tested for difficulty or "workability." I know now that it would be a better idea to do more frequent mini-tests rather than one large test spanning the entirety of a grading period/series of units. I think that I can use this knowledge to help me be a more experienced test-maker and find questions that challenge my students, and also assess what I want them to know in a less structured and rigid way. The tests that I made informally were based solely off the previous teachers and tests I'd had. There really was no other template for me to go off of, and this chapter gave me some interesting possibilities other than the traditional "sit down and take the test" method.

Eric Cole
While there are several items in this chapter that are kind of “No Duh” types of things: Use a variety of questions on the test. Don’t just make it an entire short answer test, or multiple choice test. Make what you want as an answer for each question clear with number of examples you want, length of the short answer paragraph, etc... There are a few items that I never really thought of before, but which I think are the most significant. First, don’t use timed tests. We like to think as teachers that if a student completes a test within the timeframe that we give them then they must have really knew their stuff, and must have really done great on the test. This would be a false assumption though. Most students get nervous during a timed exam, and try and rush through their answers just so that they can get the test done. Oftentimes, this negatively impacts their performance on the test. Giving students ample amount of time to complete a test, and giving them more time if the student needs it is a much more efficient way of doing things. Students will feel less pressure, and they will produce better work. Going along those lines, the second thing I most agree with in this chapter is to give students a series of small tests over a long period of time, rather than just cram everything into one huge test at the end. This type of method produces even more stress than a timed exam because students are then surrounded by 50 pages of notes that they need to read and memorize, and they freak out. I know this because I have been there. Giving students smaller tests will reduce the amount of pressure they feel, and will, once again, produce better learning.

Diana Quinlan
Chapter six of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// talks about how to create effective assessments and assessment questions. Right of the bat it is clear that multiple choice answers which make students guess have no place in a differentiated classroom. The point of an assessment is to allow students to show what they have learned over the cores of a unit. The point is not to confuse them or have them guess what the teacher is thinking. That is why it is best to keep assessments short and sweet. Effective assessments should mix traditional questions, such as matching or true and false, with nontraditional questions such as drawings, and real life applications. Traditional questions such as matching should be kept to one page, other wise students are likely to get confused and make mistakes which could be easily avoided. It is also helpful to highlight important words in the directions so nervous students do not misread them and answer the wrong way. I know that students tend to get nervous and freak out when it comes time to take a test. This is why when I am creating a test I plan on adding a joke or two in the directions to loosen the mood. I also plan to incorporate my students names into the questions in funny ways so they will look forward to taking my tests just to see what strange thing I have them doing. I know I would have done much better on my tests in high school if my teachers took the time to make them interesting.

Amanda Fitzpatrick
After discussing other means of assessment it is only natural to dive into the art of test question making. Although I have learned that English classes have minimal tests through experience, I think that this chapter will also help me when it comes to creating prompts for essay questions along with formative quizzes. When reading this chapter I felt as though the authors took a lot of time to decide which "hints" were worthwhile to add in, as the ideas presented in this chapter really capitalized on how to make not only a successful test question, but also one that will engage the student; and during a test this feat is a hard one to master. I especially liked the "Two special questions" that could be used on a test. The idea of having a student add in information that they studied and absorbed yet was not on the test is a great idea--this shows the instructor that the students have grasped ideas presented in the class (especially when they do a good job at explaining that topic). I also like the second question--that which cannot be answered, as it shows a look into the psyche of the student; how their brain functions and how much thought they put into processing the question.

Sarah McGinley
Fair Isn’t Always Equal Chapter 6: Creating Good Test Questions 2/2/10

I agree with this chapter when it talks about how multiple choice questions evaluate on how well students can guess the right answer instead of showing that they know the content that was taught prior to the exam. The reason for this is because sometimes, when students take a multiple choice exam, they have a small percent chance that they could guess the right answer but teachers would have no way of knowing. This is why different ways of assessments are so much better for the student and the teacher in the long run. Instead of giving a multiple choice exam, I would rather have the students write a self-reflection assessment about what they have learned and give details. This way the student would have to write what they know about what the lesson was really about. Having students answer a few multiple choice questions is not a bad thing as long as you incorporate another type of question, such as fill-in the blank, short answer, or essay questions. This way the student doesn’t have a chance to guess the right answer but instead pull answers from learned knowledge. I would like to use non-traditional ways, like short answer, or essays, to assess student’s knowledge so I have a true understanding of what they have learned from the lessons.

Jared Boghosian
A lot of this chapter boils down to how to make a test questions that don't punish the students. I have had many tests where the multiple choice questions were brutal. Every test should have a variety of question types such as multiple choice, true and false, essay, and short answer. Develop test questions that are efficient for the students; an example from the book was printing out T and F for true false questions so that the students simply have to circle them and not slide by with poor representations of T and F, very clever. Also beware making patterns in the test questions, if there starts to be a pattern in an a,b,c,d multiple choice test like cabdcabd, it might be a good idea to mix it up so that the students don't try and memorize the pattern. Instead force them to focus in on the content. I hope to try and create clear and effective tests while making them just hard enough to reveal mastery from my students.

Susanna Cooper
Chapter 6:

Chapter six was very useful to me. I want to know and understand more about how to create good testing questions for my students. The section “make it efficient for students” gave me a lot of good advice. It helped me to think back to high school, to the way my own tests had been set up. Most of the time my teachers had us circle the word or letter true or false, I never realized this was for our convenience or to make the test go quicker. I also never realized that by putting all the questions in a matching section on the left and the answers on the right it is easier for the students. And when I think back, that is the way most of the matching sections were set up! I really liked how this text explained how the students need to read the question first and then look for the answer, instead of reading the answer and looking for the question. Again, I never realized that tests like this were set up the way they were for a reason and not just the teacher’s preference. I also had an “aha” moment when the text discusses the method of folding an answer sheet and double recording answers when taking a test. My classmates always whined and were anxious for their test results, this way solves that problem and as the book says, gives fast feedback! The end of this chapter made one final, really good point about testing the way we teach. If we teach with a calculator or dictionary, then the students can test with a calculator or dictionary. That seems very fair to me.

Jason Malbon
Creating good test questions is vital in fairly measuring student understanding. I have had many classes where forced answer questions were the rule. It feels like your being cheated when you fall victim to a cleverly worded true/false question. Do those really measure understanding? Even experienced historians can be tricked by tricky wording. That is not to say that forced response questions are all evil. They simply should not be the only question type. Constructed response questions are those that require interpretation and generation of a product i.e. essay or short answer response. I liked these questions because as I wrote, things would come back to memory. This must obviously be the same for many other students. The chapter goes into detail in how to word or construct questions. An obvious one is to literally provide a T or F on the page for the students to circle. This is a great way to eliminate problems for messy hand writers. Other sound advice is to keep questions short, use caution with timed tests and avoid intentional trickery. I believe in keeping questions straight forward and stay away from surprises. Test only what you told your students you would be testing.