Creating Quality Essay Exams
Subjective Assessment Questions Focus on Learning Objectives
Oct 19, 2007
The Purpose of Assessment
One of the most difficult tasks a teacher faces is the creation of assessment tasks. A well written test will reveal what students truly know and, more importantly, what they have been taught.
While creating test items sounds easy, relatively few educators have as much practical training in tests and measurements as they do in psychology and methodology. Thus, too often teachers create tests that do not accurately assess unit and course objectives. A poorly constructed test will result in student grades that may not accurately reflect what has been learned.
Elements of a Quality Essay Exam
Essay tests can be an excellent measure of understanding if they require students to go beyond rote factual knowledge. Indeed, a quality written exam will require a student to go beyond the bottom levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (defining and listing) and ask students to show broader comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Ultimately, the test should show how newly learned objectives apply to other knowledge.
A well written essay question will:
- Require students to provide memorized facts in a context that shows broader understanding.
- Be well worded to avoid the potential for misinterpretation.
- Reflect major ideas that have been adequately covered in class lectures, reading, written assignments, discussions and group seminars.
- Be graded with a rubric that has been provided to students in advance of the test. The rubric should provide students with clear scoring guidelines.
- Be scored primarily on correctness, organization, logic and thoroughness. Handwriting and grammar are secondary unless they inhibit communication. Classroom management strategy: Encourage students to skip lines and to write on only one side of the page. That way, they can more easily insert changes if necessary.
- Not be more complicated than can be answered in a single testing session.
- Not be the singular basis upon which a course grade is computed.
Preparing Students for the Essay Test
Before the test, instructors should always provide a study guide and class time for review and questions. If possible, students should be provided with possible essay topics in advance of the exam so that they can consider how answers to various questions might be organized. Allow students to work in groups to organize and study various topics.
Be sure to allow students with documented learning disabilities that effect writing to have an oral examination, a laptop or other word processing keyboard, or extra time on the test.
Finally, use the assessment to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your own teaching. When the tests are returned, provide examples of several successful essays and be sure to review common mistakes in logic or content.
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