Creating questions and test items might seem easy on the surface, but a lot of thought must go into test creation to make it effective. Many times teachers test things that they never meant to assess. For example, a math teacher might have a question worded in such a way that language arts skills are being tested more than math skills. Multiple choice test item creation should be broken up into the following steps:
- Goal of test items
- Stem of each question
- Responses for each question
- Overall test construction
Goal of Test Items
Test items should:
- Measure the required skill or information
- Focus on important, not trivial, subject area content
- Contain accurate information (including correct spelling)
- Be written an an appropriate level of difficulty
- Be clear and concise
- Be bias free
Stem of Each Question
Stems should:
- Provide sufficient information
- Avoid extra information
- Be gramatically correct
- Avoid clues that help give away answers
- Avoid negatives and absolutes
- Avoid second person
Responses for Each Question
Responses should:
- Be plausible
- Be grammatically consistent with the stem
- Be of approximately the same length
- Be structurally parallel
- Provide only one correct answer
- Avoid all or none of the above
- Incorrect answers called distractors should not be too obvious
- Distractors should point out errors in thinking along the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy
Test Construction
Tests should:
- Avoid similar items
- Avoid items that help answer other items
