Writing a good assessment item depends on deciding what is \u201dfair game.\u201c Drawing clear boundaries around the intended content ensures that items focus on the content of interest and prevents the introduction of content that is out of bounds.<\/p>\n
Targeting assessments items to one or two sub-ideas makes each item precise, enabling a specific and clear assessment of students\u2019 understanding of a particular idea. Plus, the cognitive load of the item, or how much information a student needs to consider when answering the item, increases as an item assesses more ideas. There is an important place for items that ask students to make connections across several ideas. However, without precisely targeted items, it is difficult to know why students struggle with the more complex ones\u2014do students lack understanding of one or more pieces of content, or are they having difficulty relating the various ideas?<\/p>\n
Students should have to know the target content to answer a question correctly. Put another way, students should not be able to answer the item correctly without knowing the content (for instance, through test-wiseness).<\/p>\n
Sufficiency means that the knowledge in the target content is all<\/em> a student needs to know to answer the item correctly; answering the item correctly requires no knowledge outside the target content.<\/p>\n It is important to keep the entire assessment in mind to avoid one item teaching content that may be assessed in another. Providing some context can be important for situating the content of an item, but it is important to be careful that the context does not teach other ideas being assessed. (We don\u2019t believe that students can learn science well from reading an assessment item, but the test-wise student will use clues in one item to answer another one.)<\/p>\n \u201dMirroring\u201c means that all answer choices should reflect the question asked. Mirroring helps students know what to expect from the answer choices and prevents them from ruling out certain choices simply because they do not answer the question asked.<\/p>\n Assessment items should use language that is accessible to as many students in the class as possible. As much as possible, items should assess students\u2019 knowledge and understanding of science content, not their reading ability.<\/p>\n Items should be analyzed on the basis of linguistic criteria that support student access to assessment items, especially for limited English Language Learners.\u00a0 Meeting these criteria will increase the validity of interpretations that can be made about student understanding for a wider range of students.\u00a0 Some of these guidelines are included here:<\/p>\nPrinciple 5: Don\u2019t Teach<\/h3>\n
Principle 6: Mirroring<\/h3>\n
Principle 7: Maximize comprehension<\/h3>\n
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Additional guidelines for\u00a0the use of visuals in test items:<\/h4>\n
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