TYPES OF ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. Restricted-Response Questions. It places strict limits on the answer to be given; the

boundaries of the subject matter to be considered are usually narrowly defined by the
problem.

Examples:
Why are tomatoes better for your health than potato chips?
What is the effect of inflation of raising the prime interest rate?
Describe the relative merits of selection-type test items and essay questions for
measuring learning outcomes at the comprehension level. Confine your answer to
one page.

2. Extended-Response Questions. This type gives the students almost unlimited freedom
to determine the form and scope of their responses. The students must be given sufficient
freedom to demonstrate skills of synthesis and evaluation, and just enough control to
assure that the intended intellectual skills will be called forth by the question.

Examples:
1. Explain how the fertilizers farmers use to grow crops may pollute our river
and streams.
2. Describe the major events that led to People Power Revolution in 1986.

3. Give an example, new to me and not one from class, of how the law of supply
and demand would make prices of some products increase.

4. Write a critical evaluation of this test using the rules and standards for test
constructions described in the textbook. Include a detailed analysis of the
test’s strengths and weaknesses and an overall evaluation of its overall quality.

5. In teaching a particular lesson, prepare a complete plan for evaluating student

achievement. Be sure to include the procedures you would follow, the
instruments you would use, and the reason for your choices.

Guidelines in Constructing Essay Questions

1. Construct the item to elicit skills identified in the learning target. A good way to begin
writing the item to match the target is to start with a standard stem. Then modify it as
needed for the subject and level of student ability. Examples are shown in the table
below.

Skills Stem
Comparing Describe the similarities and differences between…..
Compare the following two methods of ….
Relating Cause What are the major causes of …?
and Effect What would be most likely the effects of …?
Justifying Which of the following alternatives do you favor and why?
Explain why you agree or disagree with the following statement
Summarizing State the main points included in…..
Briefly summarize the contents of…
Generalizing Formulate several valid generalizations from the following data.
State a set of principle that can explain the following events.
Inferring In light of the facts presented, what is most likely to happen when..?
How would Senator X be likely to react to the following issues?
Classifying Group the following items according to…
What do the following items have in common?
Creating List as many ways as you can think of for….
Make up a story describing what would happen if…
Applying Using the principle of …. as a guide, describe how to solve the problem
Describe a situation that illustrates the principle of…
Analyzing Describe the reasoning errors in the following paragraph.
List and describe the main characteristics of…
Synthesizing Describe a plan for providing that…
Write a well-organized report that shows….
Evaluating Describe the strengths and weaknesses of …
Using the given criteria, write an evaluation of….

2. Write the item so that the students clearly understand the specific task. If the students
will need to interpret what is asked, many answers will be off target. When students
misinterpreted the task, you don’t know if they have the targeted skills or not, leading to
invalid conclusions.

3. Indicate the criteria for scoring their responses. This can be labeled as scoring plan,
scoring criteria, or attributes to be scored.

Examples:

(For Scoring Writing Skills)

 Organization
 Clarity
 Appropriateness to audience
 Mechanics

(For Scoring an Argument)

 Distinguishing between fact and opinion
 Judging credibility of a source
 Identifying relevant material
 Recognizing inconsistencies
 Using logic
 (For Scoring Decision Making)
 Identifying goals or purpose
 Identify obstacles
 Identifying and evaluating alternatives
 Justifying the choice of one alternative

4. Indicate approximately how much time students should spend on each essay-item. You
can get idea by writing draft answers, and as you gain more experience the responses of
previous students to similar questions will be helpful. Make sure that even the slowest
writers can complete their answers satisfactorily in the time available.
5. Avoid giving students options as to which essay questions they will answer. When
doing this, each student may be taking a different test. Differences in the difficulty of
each question are unknown, thus making scoring problematic.

Guidelines for Scoring Responses in an Essay Item

1. Outline what constitutes a good or acceptable answer as a scoring key. It is better to have
the points specified before reading student answers so that you are not unduly influenced
by initial papers you already read.
2. Select an appropriate scoring method. Scoring could either be holistic – overall judgment
about the answer, giving it a single grade or score or analytic – giving each of the
identified criteria separate points. Analytic scoring is preferred for restricted response
questions; however, it can be time-consuming.
3. Clarify the role of writing mechanics. Decide in advance whether spelling, grammar and
other criteria will be included as factors in evaluating responses. This certainly will
influence your overall impression of an answer.
4. Evaluate all of the students’ answer to ne question before proceeding to the next question.
Scoring essays by questions rather by students can maintain a more uniform standard
judging the answer and helps reduce the halo effect –the grader’s impression of the paper
as a whole is apt to influence the grades assigned to the individual answers.
5. Score the answers anonymously. This will reduce if not eliminate the bias during scoring.
This can be done by having the students write their names on the back of the paper or by
using code numbers.
6. Whenever possible, have two or more persons grade each answer. Obtain two
independent judgments, especially where the results are to be used for important and
irreversible decisions.