Lesson 18-Table of Specifications

Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University Educ 105
Mid-La Union Campus Assessment of Learning I

College of Education Table of Specifications
Bachelor of Secondary Education Lesson 18
Outcomes:
1. Define the table of specifications for examinations.

2. Discuss the steps in making a table of specifications.
3. Construct a table of specifications.
Table of Specifications (TOS)
A document called terms of specifications (TOS) helps you plan out your exam. You can
also call the document, table of specifications. It will make your test creation process more
methodological and organized. Creating a solid terms of specification will increase the
likelihood of you creating a test that is valid and reliable.
Steps
1.
The first rule in making exams and therefore in making a document called table of
specification is to make sure the coverage of your exam is something that you have
satisfactorily taught in class. Select the topics that you wish to test in the exam. It is
possible that you will not be able to cover all these topics as it might create a test that is too
long and will not be realistic for your students in the given time. So select only the most
important topics.
2.
In this step, you will need to be familiar with the taxonomy of thinking skills. The hierarchy
of learning objectives has been identified, from the lower thinking skills of knowledge and
comprehension to the higher thinking skills of evaluation and synthesis.
The taxonomy has six categories: (starting from lower level to highest) - (1) Remembering,
(2) Understanding, (3) Applying, (4) Analysing, (5) Evaluating and (6) Creating
So for each content area that you wish to test, you will have to determine how you will test
each area. Will you test simply their recall of knowledge? Or will you be testing their
comprehension of the matter? Or perhaps you will be challenging them to analyze and
compare and contrast something. Again, this would depend on your instructional
objectives in the classroom. Did you teach them lower thinking skills or did you challenge
them by making them think critically?
Your objectives per topic area should use very specific verbs on how you intend to test the
students using the taxonomy. For example, for the 2nd level which is understanding, verbs
to use for the objectives would be explain or retell if it is in the context of understanding a
story.
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/ a 2 Educ 105 – Assessment of Learning I

For the cognitive level of analysing, verbs you can use for that taxonomy level is analyze, or
show the relationships.
It is important that your terms of specification reflect your instructional procedures during
the semester. If your coverage on a topic mostly dwelt on knowledge and comprehension of
material, then you cannot test them by going up the hierarchy of taxonomy. Thus it is
crucial that you give a balanced set of objectives throughout the semester depending on the
nature of your students.
3.
The next step in making the table of specifications is to write down how long you spent
teaching a particular topic. This is important because it will determine how many points
you should devote for each topic. Logically, the longer time you spent on teaching a
material, then the more questions should be devoted for that area.
4.
Now that you have created your table of specifications for your test by aligning your
objectives to the taxonomy, it’s time to determine the test types that will accomplish your
testing objectives. For example, remembering questions can be accomplished easily
through multiple choice questions or matching type exams.
If you want to test evaluating or creating levels of a topic, you will want to create exam type
questions or perhaps you will ask the students to create diagrams and explain their
diagrams in their analysis.
The important thing is that the test type should reflect your testing objective.
5.
After your initial draft of the table of specifications, it’s time to polish it. Make sure that you
have covered in your terms of specification the important topics that you wish to test. The
number of items for your test should be sufficient for the time allotted for the test. You
should seek your academic coordinator and have them comment on your table of
specification. They will be able to give good feedback on how you can improve or modify it.

Sample Table of Specifications
The format of the table may vary, sometimes depending on the institution. The item
placement may be indicated in the specific column where they belong. Most of the time,
since several types of tests are used (Enumeration, Multiple-Choice, True-False, etc.), one
may indicate the test number in the item placement. The important thing is the
distribution of the test items can be readily seen in the table. It may even be necessary to
make some adjustments in the table as one proceeds in writing the test items.
Study Guides:
Reflect on the lesson by asking yourself the following questions. You may not necessarily
answer them,
 What makes the Table of Specifications indispensable in tests construction?

 Comment on the practice of writing examinations without a TOS.

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Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University Educ 105

Mid-La Union Campus Assessment of Learning I

1. Define the table of specifications for examinations.

Table of Specifications (TOS)

/ a 2 Educ 105 – Assessment of Learning I

/ a 2 Educ 105 – Assessment of Learning I

Sample Table of Specifications

 What makes the Table of Specifications indispensable in tests construction?

/ a 2 Educ 105 – Assessment of Learning I

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