Tips for Improving Testing and Grading

by Katherine E. Ryan and John C. Ory

Book Overview

Using detailed examples, checklists and exercises, the authors show how to develop, use and grade classroom examinations. They provide a thorough, step-by-step discussion of general testing and grading issues, including: deciding on the content of an exam; assessing difficulty levels; writing different kinds of test items; scoring different test items; evaluating different subject areas; helping students review for an exam; and developing grading...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080394974X
• ISBN13: 9780803949744
• Release Date: August 1993
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A short, practical guide to constructing fair tests.

When I told the saleswoman at the Teachers College Bookstore what I was looking for - a practical guide to constructing multiple choice tests - she said something to the effect of "Practical? You won't find anything like that here." But then she dug around in a corner and came up with one copy of this 100-page paperback. This book read so easily, and addressed the key issues so directly, that I finished it off on two subway rides and immediately implemented the recommendations on my company's multiple-choice tests that accompany self-study guides. Subjects include "clueing" - smart test-takers who answer questions by eliminating wrong answers - and the differences between absolute and normative tests. I'm not a professional educator. If I were, I would probably find more faults with this book. But it served my purpose very well. Multiple choice tests may have problems, but unfortunately, I have to use them, and so I need to know how to construct them. This book told me how, in a way that was painless or even fun. One criticism: I would like to have seen a discussion of how long a multiple choice test needs to be in order to be confident with a given level of certainty - say, 95% - that the correct answers are not due to chance alone. (If you want to answer this question, I recommend another inexpensive paperback - The Harper Collins Dictionary of Statistics - specifically the 3-page entry on the binomial distribution.)