guidelines in constructing essay test pdf

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Creating and Scoring Essay Tests

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Essay tests are useful for teachers when they want students to select, organize, analyze, synthesize, and/or evaluate information. In other words, they rely on the upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy . There are two types of essay questions: restricted and extended response.

• Restricted Response - These essay questions limit what the student will discuss in the essay based on the wording of the question. For example, "State the main differences between John Adams' and Thomas Jefferson's beliefs about federalism," is a restricted response. What the student is to write about has been expressed to them within the question.
• Extended Response - These allow students to select what they wish to include in order to answer the question. For example, "In Of Mice and Men , was George's killing of Lennie justified? Explain your answer." The student is given the overall topic, but they are free to use their own judgment and integrate outside information to help support their opinion.

Student Skills Required for Essay Tests

Before expecting students to perform well on either type of essay question, we must make sure that they have the required skills to excel. Following are four skills that students should have learned and practiced before taking essay exams:

• The ability to select appropriate material from the information learned in order to best answer the question.
• The ability to organize that material in an effective manner.
• The ability to show how ideas relate and interact in a specific context.
• The ability to write effectively in both sentences and paragraphs.

Constructing an Effective Essay Question

Following are a few tips to help in the construction of effective essay questions:

• Begin with the lesson objectives in mind. Make sure to know what you wish the student to show by answering the essay question.
• Decide if your goal requires a restricted or extended response. In general, if you wish to see if the student can synthesize and organize the information that they learned, then restricted response is the way to go. However, if you wish them to judge or evaluate something using the information taught during class, then you will want to use the extended response.
• If you are including more than one essay, be cognizant of time constraints. You do not want to punish students because they ran out of time on the test.
• Write the question in a novel or interesting manner to help motivate the student.
• State the number of points that the essay is worth. You can also provide them with a time guideline to help them as they work through the exam.
• If your essay item is part of a larger objective test, make sure that it is the last item on the exam.

Scoring the Essay Item

One of the downfalls of essay tests is that they lack in reliability. Even when teachers grade essays with a well-constructed rubric, subjective decisions are made. Therefore, it is important to try and be as reliable as possible when scoring your essay items. Here are a few tips to help improve reliability in grading:

• Determine whether you will use a holistic or analytic scoring system before you write your rubric . With the holistic grading system, you evaluate the answer as a whole, rating papers against each other. With the analytic system, you list specific pieces of information and award points for their inclusion.
• Prepare the essay rubric in advance. Determine what you are looking for and how many points you will be assigning for each aspect of the question.
• Avoid looking at names. Some teachers have students put numbers on their essays to try and help with this.
• Score one item at a time. This helps ensure that you use the same thinking and standards for all students.
• Avoid interruptions when scoring a specific question. Again, consistency will be increased if you grade the same item on all the papers in one sitting.
• If an important decision like an award or scholarship is based on the score for the essay, obtain two or more independent readers.
• Beware of negative influences that can affect essay scoring. These include handwriting and writing style bias, the length of the response, and the inclusion of irrelevant material.
• Review papers that are on the borderline a second time before assigning a final grade.
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Constructing Essay Tests

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Assessment: Test construction basics

• Aligning outcomes, assessment, and instruction
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• Types of assessment

Test construction basics

• Multiple choice questions
• Short answer questions
• Completion questions
• Matching questions
• True/false questions
• Take home/open book
• Reducing test anxiety
• Benefits and challenges
• Planning and implementing group work
• Preparing students for group work
• Assessing group work
• Additional resources
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• Academic integrity
• Further readings

The following information provides some general guidelines to assist with test development and is meant to be applicable across disciplines.

Make sure you are familiar with  Bloom’s Taxonomy , as it is referenced frequently. 

General Tips

Start with your learning outcomes. Choose objective and subjective assessments that match your learning outcomes and the level of complexity of the learning outcome.

Use a test blueprint. A test blueprint is a rubric, document, or table that lists the learning outcomes to be tested, the level of complexity, and the weight for the learning outcome (see sample). A blueprint will make writing the test easier and contribute immensely to test validity. Note that Bloom’s taxonomy can be very useful with this activity. Share this information with your students, to help them to prepare for the test.

Let your students know what to expect on the test . Be explicit; otherwise students may make incorrect assumptions about the test.

Word questions clearly and simply. Avoid complex questions, double negatives, and idiomatic language that may be difficult for students, especially multilingual students, to understand.

Have a colleague or instructional assistant read through (or even take) your exam.  This will help ensure your questions and exam are clear and unambiguous. This also contributes to the reliability and validity of the test

Assess the length of the exam . Unless your goal is to assess students’ ability to work within time constraints, design your exam so that students can comfortably complete it in the allocated time. A good guideline is to take the exam yourself and time it, then triple the amount of time it took you to complete the exam, or adjust accordingly.

Write your exam key prior to students taking the exam. The point value you assign to each question should align with the level of difficulty and the importance of the skill being assessed. Writing the exam key enables you to see how the questions align with instructional activities. You should be able to easily answer all the questions. Decide if you will give partial credit to multi-step questions and determine the number of steps that will be assigned credit. Doing this in advance assures the test is reliable and valid.

Design your exam so that students in your class have an equal opportunity to fully demonstrate their learning . Use different types of questions, reduce or eliminate time pressure, allow memory aids when appropriate, and make your questions fair. An exam that is too easy or too demanding will not accurately measure your students’ understanding of the material.

Characteristics of test questions, and how to choose which to use

Including a variety of question types in an exam enables the test designer to better leverage the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of any individual question type. Multiple choice questions are popular for their versatility and efficiency, but many other question types can add value to a test. Some points to consider when deciding which, when, and how often to use a particular question type include:

• Workload:  Some questions require more front-end workload (i.e., time-consuming to write), while others require more back-end workload (i.e., time-consuming to mark).
• Depth of knowledge: Some question types are better at tapping higher-order thinking skills, such as analyzing or synthesizing, while others are better for surface level recall.
• Processing speed: Some question types are more easily processed and can be more quickly answered. This can impact the timing of the test and the distribution of students’ effort across different knowledge domains.

All test items should :

• Assess achievement of learning outcomes for the unit and/or course
• Measure important concepts and their relationship to that unit and/or course
• Align with your teaching and learning activities and the emphasis placed on concepts and tasks
• Measure the appropriate level of knowledge
• Vary in levels of difficulty (some factual recall and demonstration of knowledge, some application and analysis, and some evaluation and creation)

Two important characteristics of tests are:

• Reliability – to be reliable, the test needs to be consistent and free from errors.
• Validity – to be valid, the test needs to measure what it is supposed to measure.

There are two general categories for test items:

1. Objective items – students select the correct response from several alternatives or supply a word or short phrase answer. These types of items are easier to create for lower order Bloom’s (recall and comprehension) while still possible to design for higher order thinking test items (apply and analyze).

Objective test items include:

• Multiple choice
• Completion/Fill-in-the-blank

Objective test items are best used when:

• The group tested is large; objective tests are fast and easy to score.
• The test will be reused (must be stored securely).
• Highly reliable scores on a broad range of learning goals must be obtained as efficiently as possible.
• Fairness and freedom from possible test scoring influences are essential.

2. Subjective or essay items – students present an original answer. These types of items are easier to use for higher order Bloom’s (apply, analyze, synthesize, create, evaluate).

Subjective test items include:

• Short answer essay
• Extended response essay
• Problem solving
• Performance test items (these can be graded as complete/incomplete, performed/not performed)

Subjective test items are best used when:

• The group to be tested is small or there is a method in place to minimize marking load.
• The test in not going to be reused (but could be built upon).
• The development of students’ writing skills is a learning outcome for the course.
• Student attitudes, critical thinking, and perceptions are as, or more, important than measuring achievement.

Objective and subjective test items are both suitable for measuring most learning outcomes and are often used in combination. Both types can be used to test comprehension, application of concepts, problem solving, and ability to think critically. However, certain types of test items are better suited than others to measure learning outcomes. For example, learning outcomes that require a student to ‘demonstrate’ may be better measured by a performance test item, whereas an outcome requiring the student to ‘evaluate’ may be better measured by an essay or short answer test item.

Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy by Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching , licensed under CC-BY 2.0 .

Common question types

• Multiple choice  
• True/false  
• Completion/fill-in-the-blank 
• Short answer

Tips to reduce cheating

• Use randomized questions
• Use question pools
• Use calculated formula questions
• Use a range of different types of questions
• Avoid publisher test banks
• Do not re-use old tests
• Minimize use of multiple choice questions
• Have students “show their work” (for online courses they can scan/upload their work)
• Remind students of academic integrity guidelines, policies and consequences
• Have students sign an academic honesty form at the beginning of the assessment

Additional considerations for constructing effective tests

Prepare new or revised tests each time you teach a course. A past test will not reflect the changes in how you presented the material and the topics you emphasized. Writing questions at the end of each unit is one way to make sure your test reflects the learning outcomes and teaching activities for the unit.

Be cautious about using item banks from textbook publishers. The items may be poorly written, may focus on trivial topics, and may not reflect the learning outcomes for your course.

Make your tests cumulative. Cumulative tests require students to review material they have already studied and provide additional opportunity to include higher-order thinking questions, thus improving retention and learning. 

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