CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT

TIPS FOR PLANNING GOOD ASSESSMENTS

1. Have the purpose of the test clearly in mind.

2. Determine what type of assessment would be most appropriate for the situation based on the nature of what you are teaching, the purpose of the instruction, and what you want to measure. (You can use the chart on pages 8-9 to help you with this step.)

3. If the purpose of the assessment is to determine how well students have mastered a particular unit of study, make sure the test parallels the work covered in class.

4. If the assessment is a selected-response or fill-in-the-blank test that will be used to diagnose basic skills, it should contain at least 10 questions — preferably more — for each skill area. The questions pertaining to each skill area should be

considered a subtest, and those subtests should yield separate scores.

5. If the major purpose of the test is to rank a selected group of students in order of

their achievement, the questions should cover critical points of learning. Questions

on critical points often require understanding implications, applying information, and

reorganizing data.The questions should challenge students to do more than

memorize and recall facts.

6. Focus on assessing the most important and meaningful information rather than small,

irrelevant facts. For example, after students read a passage about nutrition,

rather than asking a comprehension question such as,“How many vitamins are

essential for humans? A. 7; B. 13; C. 15; D. 23,” consider asking,“Name at least seven

vitamins that are essential for humans and explain why they are essential.”

7. Never use questions on inconsequential details just to trick students.