1. Make sure the items focus on the important learning targets.
2. Make sure the items assess only the knowledge and skills pertinent to the learning target.
3. Try not to prevent or inhibit the student's ability to demonstrate knowledge of the learning target.

To make sure you follow the above ideas:

• make sure you are very clear as to what the learning target is, and
• avoid poor wording, directions, or illustrations.

test wiseness - the ability to take advantage of clues in poorly constructed items and use past experience to perform better on an assessment than what is actually known.

Short-answer items require responding with a word, phrase, number, or symbol. Types include:

question variety - these ask direct questions.
completion variety - asks the student to provide a word to complete a statement.
association variety - use a list of terms or illustrations that require that require students to provide numbers, labels, or other terms (refer to figure 7.1 in text for examples).

Although short-answer items are well suited for assessing knowledge and comprehension (lower-order skills), they can also be constructed to assess higher-order skills such as:

• data interpretation and rule application
• numerical problem solving
• mathematical, chemical symbol manipulation and equation balancing (see table 7.2 in text for examples).

Advantages of short-answer items include:

• relatively easy construction
• objective scoring (though not free from subjectivity)
• low probability of random guessing (zero, in fact)
• assignment of partial credit for informed guessing

The following questions (taken from Table 7.3 in textbook) are used as a checklist for judging quality of short-answer and completion items:

1. Does the item assess an important aspect of the learning target?
2. Does the item match your assessment plan (e.g., Table of Specifications)?
3. Is the item written in question form when possible?
4. Is the item brief and worded clearly?
5. Are blanks near the end of the question/sentence?
6. Are questions/statements paraphrased (vs. verbatim from the text)?
7. Is the omitted word an important concept to be known?
8. Is there only one (sometimes 2) blanks?
9. Are blanks of similar length and arranged in columns when appropriate?
10. When necessary, does the item state the degree of specificity required in the response?
11. Are grammatical and other irrelevant clues avoided?

The following statements are in regards to the above checklist:

• Always use number 1 and 2 on any assessment, even if you use no other guideline.
• Items are clearer when you ask them as straightforward questions that "focus" the student.
• If the question form implies a longer answer is required, then use a statement instead.
• Word questions so it is obvious only a one-word response is required.
• Blanks placed at or near the end avoid confusion and rereading or restructuring the item as a question.
• Copying items verbatim from the text encourages rote memorization (and confusion when out of context).
• Unimportant concepts decrease validity of the assessment.
• Using more than one or two blanks makes the item ambiguous.
• Test-wise students will use the length of a blank as a clue to the correct answer.
• Specifying the preciseness of the expected answer saves time and encourages higher achievement.
• When wording provides a clue, you don't know if the student has attained the learning target.

(Refer to Figures 7.2 - 7.9 in textbook for examples of poor and corrected/better items.)

True-false items are statements or propositions that students judge as being true or false. Types include:

true-false - propositions to be judged as true or false.
yes-no - direct questions that require yes-no answers.
right-wrong - computations, equations, or sentences to be judged as right-wrong.
correction - requires a judgment of true-false as well as correction of the statement.
multiple true-false - similar to multiple-choice items except each option requires judgment.
Yes-no with explanation - requires a yes-no response along with an explanation.

(Refer to Table 7.11 in textbook for examples of the above types.)

Advantages of true-false items include:

• easier rendering of some subject material to propositions,
• relative ease of construction,
• easy and objective scoring, and
• coverage of more material in less space/time.

Criticisms of true-false items include:

• poorly constructed items that assess trivial material,
• ambiguous wording occurs easily,
• items can be answered simply by random guessing, and
• they encourage students to study and accept simple statements of truth.

When true-false items are constructed properly, they can assess:

• generalizations
• comparisons
• causal/conditional propositions
• relationships
• explanations
• instances/examples of concepts/principles
• evidential statements
• prediction of events/phenomena

One thing to keep in mind is that, although completion, short-answer, and true-false items can assess some type of higher-order thinking, a variety of item types is needed to create valid assessments.

Although guessing on true-false items gives the student a 50/50 chance of getting the item correct, the laws of chance prevent students from performing well simply by guessing (see Table 7.5 for probabilities).

Informed guessing is where students use partial knowledge to answer the item and results in a higher than 50/50 chance, but it still doesn't lead to as high a probability as knowing the answer (which is 100%).

It is a good idea that before you try to write a good true-false item, use propositions that:

• represent important ideas,
• can be defended by competent critics as true or false, and
• are not readily obvious to those with only general knowledge.

The following questions are taken from Table 7.6 in the textbook and can be used as a checklist for improving/judging the quality of true-false items:

1. Does the item assess an important aspect of a learning target?
2. Does it match your assessment plan (i.e., Table of Specifications)?
3. Does the item assess important concepts/knowledge vs. trivial knowledge?
4. Is the item absolutely true or false without adding additional information?
5. Is the item paraphrased rather than taken verbatim from the textbook?
6. Are the lengths of true and false items similar?
7. Does the assessment avoid a consistent pattern of answering?
8. Are items free of word/verbal clues that give the correct answer?
9. Are sources of stated opinions noted?
10. If not a relationship item, does the item assess only one important idea?

The following statements deal with the questions in the checklist above regarding true-false items:

• Again, always use questions 1 & 2 for every item, and throw out those that you answer "no" to.
• One problem with true-false items is it is easy to assess trivial knowledge.
• Just changing verbatim text from the book and wording it negatively tricks even knowledgeable students.
• Avoid general propositions that can be argues against or proven an exception.
• To reduce item ambiguity: use short statements, exact language, and avoid double negatives.
• Verbatim text is taken out of context; paraphrasing allows for comprehension.
• Avoid making true statements more qualified/wordy than false items.
• If patterns of correct answers are existent, test-wise students will detect them.
• Having a few more false items than true items has been shown to be more discriminate.
• Specific determiners give clues to correct answers (always, never, every usually make items false, whereas often, usually, frequently usually make items true).
• Referencing an opinion to the source reduces ambiguity by making it specific, and not asking for the student's opinion.
• If more than one idea is assessed, use separate items to avoid confusion and ambiguity.

Multiple true-false items are similar to multiple-choice items, except that each alternative requires a response, the options are numbered, there is no need for balance of true-false responses, and all alternatives must relate to the the same stem (i.e., question).

Advantages of multiple true-false items include:

• ability of students to make more responses in less time,
• multiple true-false items created from multiple-choice items have higher reliability,
• they can assess the same abilities/skills as multiple-choice items,
• students feel multiple true-false items do a better job of assessing knowledge,
• students also feel they are harder, and
• multiple true-false items are usually easier to write than regular multiple-choice items.

Limitations of multiple true-false items are similar to those of multiple-choice items, which will be discussed in Chapter 8.

(Refer to Figures 7.4 - 7.17 in the textbook for examples of true-false and multiple true-false items.)