Constructing Subjective type of Achievement Test

EDUCATIONAL
ASSESSMENT
Hina Jalal (Ph.D. GCUF) @AksEAina
Subjective/Essay Type of achievement tests

Types of Achievement Test
Objective Type of Test Subjective Type of Test
• MCQs
• True/Falls
• Matching Columns
• Fill in the blanks/Completion
• Short Answers
Short Answers Long Answers
Open ended/Extended
Close ended/Restricted

◦ Measure the students' higher
order thinking skills, such as
applying, organizing,
synthesizing, integrating,
evaluating, or projecting while at
the same time providing a
measure of writing skills.
Subjective/Essay type of test
Use Essay Questions to Assess:
•Comprehension of material learned
•Writing skills
•Evaluation
•Analysis
•User's ability to organize facts and ideas
•Vocabulary
•Problem Solving

Extended form > What are the implications of fuel price hike in our economy?
Restricted form > Describe four sources of energy.

Suggestions for constructing subjective achievement test
• While preparing questions, it should be kept in mind that the maximum subject matter content is
covered.
• There should be no overall choice in question paper. Choice should be given for each question or
it should be section wise.
• Reasonable amount of time should be allowed to ensure that the essay type test does not
become a test of speed in writing . It should be a power test rather than a speed test.
• It should indicate a variety of question to assess abilities like knowledge, understanding,
analysis, synthesis and application.
• The questions may arranged in order of difficulty, i.e. from the easier to the more difficult.

Improving objective and relevancy in
scoring tests is to prepare an ideal
answer to each essay question and to
base the scoring on relations between
examinee answers and the ideal answer.
Types of scoring Essay Test
Norm Referenced Test
Criterion referenced Test
Methods of scoring essay test
There are two methods of scoring essay test:
1: Analytic/Point method
In this method, each answer is compared
with already prepared ideal making scheme
(scoring key ) and marks are assigned
according to the adequacy of the answer.
2: Holistic/Global method
In this method, students first sort the
response into categories of varying quality
based on their general or global impression
on reading the response.
Scoring Essay tests:

A statement of purpose, function and descriptive guideline. Scoring Rubric :
A scoring rubric evaluates the performance of an assignment. It’s an organized way
for teacher to assess their students work and learn what areas the student need to
learn.
Easy to use and explain
Make teacher’s expectations very clear
Support students learning, specially if students use rubrics to self assess
Provide more informative feedback than other forms of assessment about both
strengths and areas need of improvement.
Types of Rubrics
1. Analytic Rubric: Focus attention on one characteristic at a time i.e. purpose,
organization.
2. Holistic Rubric: Consists of a single scale with all criteria to be included in
evaluation being considered together e.g. clarity
Rubric

Advantages of Essay Questions
1. It is relatively easier to prepare and administer a six-question extended- response essay test than to
prepare and administer a comparable 60-item multiple-choice test items.
2. It is the only means that can assess an examinee’s ability to organize and present his ideas in a
logical and coherent fashion.
3. Some of the objectives such as ability to organize idea effectively, ability to criticize or justify a
statement, ability to interpret, etc., can be best measured by this type of test.
4. Logical thinking and critical reasoning, systematic presentation, etc. can be best developed by this
type of test.
5. The responses of the students need not be completely right or wrong. All degrees of
comprehensiveness and accuracy are possible.
6. It largely eliminates guessing.
7. They are valuable in testing the functional knowledge and power of expression of the pupil

1. these tests do not give scope for larger sampling of the content.
2. Such tests encourage selective reading and emphasize cramming.
3. Moreover, scoring may be affected by spelling, good handwriting, colored ink,
neatness, grammar, length of the answer, etc.
4. It requires an excessive time on the part of students to write; while assessing, reading
essays is very time-consuming and laborious.
5. It can be assessed only by a teacher or competent professionals.
6. There is halo effect-biased judgement by previous impressions.
7. The scores may be affected by his personal bias or partiality for a particular point of
view, his way of understanding the question, his weightage to different aspect of the
answer, favoritism and nepotism, etc.
Limitations of Essay Tests

Constructing Subjective type of Achievement Test

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