MODULE 4

Preparing for Assessment

⦁ INTRODUCTION

The focus of this module is on the development of varied assessment tools. It

consists of three topics namely: (1) the general principles of testing; (2) the steps in
developing varied assessment tools; and (3) Table of Specification

Preparing for an assessment is a task of a teacher which needs planning and reflection.
There is a need to identify what students seem to know and be able to do and then identify
appropriate objectives, content topics and assessment activities.

⦁ LEARNING OUTCOMES

After completing this module, you should be able to:

⦁ apply the essential elements of planning sound classroom summative

assessments, including sampling of content, constructing items, and
determining appropriate test length;
⦁ determine what is needed for good summative test directions;
⦁ state the merits and demerits of preparing a table of specification
(TOS);
⦁ plan a design of a TOS for the (major) subject to be tested; and
⦁ construct a TOS on a self-chosen grade or year level subject.

LEARNING CONTENT

⦁ Lesson 1. General Principles of Testing

Testing is a technique of obtaining information needed for evaluation purposes such as test,
quizzes, measuring instruments – devices for testing.

⦁ Measure all instructional objectives

Teachers should match the test items with the objectives posed during instruction.
• That is why, the first step of test construction is to go back to the instructional
objectives.

For example:

Objective - Given a sentence written in the past or present tense, the

student should be able to rewrite the sentence in future tense with no errors in
tense or tense contradiction.

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 Test item – Rewrite the given sentence into its future tense.
⦁ Cover all the learning task

⦁ Construct a test that contains a wide range of sampling items.

⦁ A good learning task focuses and measures a representative sample of the
teacher’s learning objectives.

⦁ Use appropriate test item

• A good test usually includes items that are most appropriate for a particular
objective to check the learner’s achievement.

⦁ Make test valid and reliable

⦁ The test measures what is supposed to be measured from
the students.
⦁ A good test is said to be tested on a tripod. Valid – the test
measures what it claims to measure
Reliability – stability of the test scores
Standardization – assessment and the procedures of administering the
assessment are similar

⦁ Use test to improve teaching

• Discuss the skills or competencies on the items that have not been
learned or mastered by the learners.

Things to ponder:

⦁ Tests are only tools, and like all tools, poor design, unintentional misuse, and
intentional abuse can impair their usefulness.
⦁ Several factors can affect the usefulness of any test. These factors include the
following:
⦁ The technical adequacy of the test.
⦁ The competency of the test user.
⦁ The extent to which the purpose the test is being used for matches the purpose
for which the test was developed.
⦁ The extent to which the population being tested matches the population the
test was developed on.

⦁ Lesson 2. Planning a Summative Test

Summative test is used primarily to document student performance; it is

assessment of learning. Summative assessments are used to monitor and record student
proficiency, to give students grades, to report to parents, for selection into special
programs, for conferring of honors, for establishing a record of performance used by
colleges for admission and hiring by employers, accountability and recently, as evidence
of student learning to evaluate teachers.
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 Examples include chapter and unit tests, semester test, common tests, final papers,
reports and presentations.

They are also used by teachers to plan instruction. Actually, some formative assessments
during instruction, such as a seatwork assignments, could be thought of as a “mini”
summative assessment in the sense that there is evidence of student proficiency in relation
to learning targets.

⦁ Characteristics of Summative Assessment

Purpose To document student proficiency

When conducted After instruction
Teacher Role To plan, administer, and record performance
Student Involvement Limited
Student Motivation Typically, performance-based
Learning Emphasized Knowledge, comprehension, and application
Level of Specificity General, group-oriented
Structure Rigid, structured, formal

⦁ Planning Summative Assessment

The first step in constructing a classroom summative assessment is to review initial ideas
in light of the criteria for ensuring high-quality assessment.
⦁ Do I have clear and appropriate learning targets?
⦁ What method of assessment will match best with the targets?
⦁ Will I have good evidence that the inferences from the assessments will be
valid?
⦁ How can I construct as assessment that will minimize error?
⦁ Will my assessment be fair and unbiased? Have students had the opportunity
to learn what is being assessed?
⦁ Will my assessment be aligned with the instruction?
⦁ Are consequences of the assessment positive?

Additional considerations include how you will obtain a representative sample of

what has been learned, the length and number of assessments, whether you should use
tests provided by publishers, how students should be prepared for the assessment, when
the assessment should be scheduled, and when you should construct the assessment.

⦁ Representative Sampling

Most summative assessments measure a sample what students have learned in the larger
domain of knowledge. It is rare, except for quizzes over short lessons, that you will assess
with a unit or chapter test everything that is included in the domain. There simply is not
enough time to assess each fact or skill. Rather, you will select a sample of what students
should know and then assume that the way they respond to a sample of items is typical of
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how they would respond to additional items of the entire domain.

⦁ Use Assessment Blueprint

An important step in representative sampling is preparing an assessment blueprint or

outline. We call it Table of Specification. This set of specification is helpful because it
indicates what students are responsible for learning. When assessment items are based on
this outline, there is a greater likelihood that the sampling will be reasonable. Without
table of specification, there is a tendency to oversample areas that you particularly like
and to overload the assessment with disproportionately large number of questions about
simple facts mainly because these questions are much easier to write.

⦁ Number and Length of Assessments

The next step is to decide how many separate assessments will be given and the
length of each one. This decision will depend on several factors, including the age of the
students, the length of classes, and the type of questions. One rule of thumb, though, is
that the time allocated for assessment should be sufficient for all students to answer all
the questions, within reason allowing some students hours when others finish in less than
an hour is not reasonable. We generally do not want to use speeded tests. This is because
speeded tests, which require students to answer as quickly as possible to obtain a high
score, increase the probability that other factors, such as anxiety and test-taking skills,
will influence the result.

⦁ Grade Level

The age of students and the length of their classes are important considerations.
Kindergarten and first grade students have relatively short attention spans, so summative
assessments usually last only 5 to 10 minutes. As attention spans and stamina increase
with age, testing time can be lengthened. THs, in later elementary grades, summative
assessments typically last between 15-30 minutes, and for secondary students 30 to 50
minutes.

⦁ Type of Item

Another important influence on the length of time it takes students to complete as

assessment is the type of item used and the cognitive level of thinking needed to answer
the question. Obviously, essay items require much more time to complete than objective
items. It also takes students longer to complete short-answer items than multiple choice or
true/false questions.

⦁ Preparing Students for Classroom Summative Assessments

Your objective in summative assessment is to obtain a fair and accurate indication of

student learning. This means that you need to take some simple steps to prepare your
students so that they will be able to best demonstrate what they know, understand, and
can do.

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Checklist for Preparing Students for Classroom Summative Assessments -
Teach assessment-taking and testwiseness skills.
⦁ Familiarize students with test length, format, and types of questions
⦁ Teach to the test (do not teach the test)
⦁ Share the assessment blue print (TOS)
⦁ Review before the assessment
⦁ Tell students when the assessment is scheduled and how long it will take to
complete.
⦁ Make sure students have the technical skills needed to be proficient with
digitally administered tests

⦁ Assessment Anxiety

We’ve all experienced assessment (test) anxiety. The emotional tightness and difficulty
in thinking with high levels of anxiety can sometimes be debilitating, and should be
avoided. A little anxiety, though, is a good thing. It motivates and facilitates good
performance. Excessive anxiety can be a real problem for some students, both high and
low achievers. So, its best to mitigate it with a few procedures:
⦁ Give students feedback on their performance to help them realize the
assessment will foster further learning (mastery goal orientation)
⦁ Arrange test items from easy to hard
⦁ Give plenty of time to complete the assessment
⦁ Minimize interruptions and other distractions
⦁ Avoid threatening students if they do poorly
⦁ Avoid unrealistically high expectations or expecting perfect performance -
Avoid severely negative consequences if students perform poorly.
⦁ Provide students with the test blueprint (TOS) or outline of the assessment
⦁ Avoid walking around the room, looking over shoulders
⦁ Avoid making comparisons with other students
⦁ Provide for optional retesting

⦁ When to Construct Summative Assessments

Summative assessments need to be planned well in advance of the scheduled testing date.
A good procedure is to construct a general outline of the test before instruction, based on
your learning targets and a table of specifications.

⦁ Putting Summative Assessments Together

Once you have developed items, they need to be put together in the form of an assessment
(test). Following a few guidelines, which include suggestions for directions, arranging
items, and the physical layout of the assessment, will result in a better assessment

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⦁ Preparing Assessment Directions
According to Miller, Linn, and Gronlund (2013), assessment directions should
include the following:
⦁ Purpose
⦁ Time allowed for completing the test
⦁ Basis for responding
⦁ Procedures for recording answers
⦁ What to do about guessing
⦁ How constructed-response items will be scored

⦁ Item Arrangement

Arranging items by level of difficulty (e.g., easy items first, then difficult ones)
has little effect on the results. If you think your students gain confidence by
answering the easiest items first, it’s fine to order the items by increasing
difficulty. The most important consideration in arranging questions is item type.
Keep all the items that use the same format together. Keep all the multiplechoice
items in one section, all the matching items in another, and so on. This reduces
the number of times students need to shift their response mode. It also minimizes
directions and makes scoring easier.
Generally, it is best to order items based on how quickly, such as completion and
binary-choice, would generally com first, followed by multiple-choice and
shortanswer items

⦁ Physical Layout

Items need to be formatted so that they are easy to read and answer. A few
commonsense suggestions help to achieve this goal
⦁ All the information needed to answer an item should be on the same page.
Avid having part of an item on one page and the rest of the item on another
page.
⦁ Do not crowd too many items onto a page. Although we all need to be careful
about wasting paper, a test that is crowded is likely to contain more errors
than one that has reasonable spacing and white space.
⦁ Multiple choice options should not be listed horizontally on the same line.
Rather, it is best if the options are listed vertically below the item.
⦁ The format of the test shoul1d enhance scoring accuracy and efficiency

⦁ Administering Summative Assessments

When administering classroom summative tests, several procedures are desirable.
⦁ The environment during testing needs to be conducive to maximizing student
performance. This means that there is sufficient light, the temperature is
appropriate, and efforts are made to ensure quiet, with no interruptions.
⦁ Arrange an assessment to both discourage and prevent cheating.

Before you proceed to the next lesson, let’s see if you can perform the learning task which I
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have prepared for you. See Activity 2.1 and Activity 2.2.

⦁ Lesson 3. Preparing Blueprint

Whatever the purpose of the test maybe, a teacher must determine appropriately the learning
outcomes to be assessed and how they will be assessed. These are the two most significant
elements a classroom teacher must competently be definite about when planning for a test
Regardless of what subject area she/he is teaching, a classroom test covers the learning outcomes
intended and essential to be achieved within the unit or period of work, in terms of cognitive
skills or competencies to be performed and demonstrated. Particularly realizing this planning
phase helps teachers make genuine connections in the trilogy among curriculum, instruction and
assessment (Fives, H. & DiDonato-Barnes, K., 2013)
The curriculum dictates the instructional as well as assessment strategies to be applied
while assessment informs both the curriculum and instruction what decisions to make to
improve learning.
To assure the preparation of a good test, a test blueprint is commonly setup in a two-way
Table of Specifications (TOS) that is basically spells out WHAT will be tested and HOW
it will be tested to obtain the information needed

WHAT covers two aspects:

⦁ The content area (i.e., subject matter) being covered
⦁ The target learning outcomes (i.e., competencies)
HOW specifies
⦁ the test format, i.e. the type of assessment question or task to be used
⦁ The item distributed to attain an effective and balanced sampling of skills to
be tested
⦁ The length of test should be able to sample what students should know based
on an outline of work
The more important a learning outcome is, the more likely will there be more
points allotted to it.
McMillan (2007) suggests some rule of thumbs in determining how many items
are sufficient for good sampling

A minimum of ten items is needed to assess each knowledge learning target in a

unit but which should represent a good cross-section of difficulty of items.

If there are more specific learning targets to be tested, at least five items would be
enough for each one to allow for criterion-referenced interpretation for mastery.
Eighty percent (80%) correct items for a competency is an acceptable mastery
criterion.

A table of specification takes different forms depending on what a teacher wants to show
- One-way TOS show only one element, e.g., the objectives of skills. It is often
used for skill-oriented subjects like language and reading or for classroom
formative test focusing on specific skills.

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