Testing

TESTING
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FOR DESIGNING MULTIPLE CHOICE ITEMS
Start with Test Specifications
Addresses curriculum objectives in terms of performance (can do)
Outline of the test
Skills and topics to be included
Item types and tasks
Elicitation and response formats for items
Number of items in each section
Time allocation and plan for scoring

Advantages of Multiple Choice Items
Good discrimination among levels of ability
High reliability
Valid indicators of overall language ability
Highly practical: convenient administer
Well-established producers to analyze items
Writing ability does not affect performance
Cost-effective format – easy scoring and grading
Familiarity of students with MCQs

Disadvantages of Multiple Choice Items
Tendency to treat words as independent linguistic units
Difficulty in construction
Field-testing, analysis, refinement required
25% chance of guessing correctly
Items may test knowledge of distracters

Wrong answer may result from lack of understanding of syntax (English)
Permits only limited sampling of total knowledge
Tests only recognition knowledge
Restrict what can be tested
Washback may be harmful
Cheating may be facilitated
Terminology
Every multiple choice item has a stem, which presents a stimulus and several options or alternatives to choose from. One of these options, the key, is the correct response. The others serve as distractors
TEST TASKS
GRAMMAR
VOCABULARY
Matching items
Matching format
Blank-filling/ completion
Multiple-choice matching
Sentence-writing

READING AND LISTENING
Cloze
Multiple Choice
Short Answer
Editing
Sequencing
Information Transfer