This is a PPT about MCQ. It offers guidelines for making good items and gives a few hints about Item Analysis.
p.s. The first few slides looked OK on the big screen!
3. “ The assumption is that is that best teacher is the teacher who devises classroom methods and techniques that derive from a comprehensive knowledge of the total process of language learning, of what is happening within the learner and within the teacher and the interaction between the two. All of this knowledge, however, remains somehow abstract in the mind of the teacher unless it can be empirically tested in the real world. Your theory of second language acquisition can be put into practice every day in the classroom, but you will never know how valid your theory is unless you systematically measure the success of your learners – the success of your theory-in-practice” Douglas Brown (1987:218)
12. ONE REASON WHY I DO NOT LIKE THEM They are notoriously difficult to write
13. Anatomy of a Multiple Choice Item 1. How did Tina go to the airport? - a) by bus - b) by car - c) on foot - d) by taxi stem alternatives distractor answer distractor distractor
23. The alternatives should be kept homogenous in content. They should not consist of potpourri of statements related to the stem but unrelated to each other
24. You should not provide clues as to which alternative is correct. Keep the grammar of each alternative consistent with the stem
25. Distractors should be as plausible as possible. They should sound plausible only to an incompetent student
26. Put the correct answer in each of the alternative positions approximately the equal number of times, in a random order
27. Avoid the use of specific determiners. (never, always, only)
29. Try to make the first few items relatively easy. Make sure you have items of the different level of difficulty
30. Do not try to write the entire test in a day. It takes time, creativity and thinking to write good multiple choice items. Come back to the test a few days later, with a fresh eye
33. PURPOSE OF ITEM ANALYSIS - Evaluates the quality of each item - The quality of items determines the quality of the test - Suggests ways of improving the test - Suggests ways of improving teaching
36. General Rules for Item Facility IF less than 0.20 - difficult test items IF 0.20 - 0.80 -moderately difficult items IF more than 0.80 - easy items
37. ITEM DISCRIMINATION ANALYSIS We test because we want to find out if the students know the material, but all we learn for certain is how they did on the exam we gave them. The item discrimination index tests the test in the hope of keeping the correlation between the knowledge and exam performance as close as it can be in an admittedly imperfect system. Zurawski 1998: 2
38. ITEM DISCRIMINATION ANALYSIS - Compares the performance of upper group of students (high test scorers) and lower group (low test scorers) on each item in the test
42. A perfect item would have 2 characteristics: - Everyone who knows the material tested in the item would get it right - Students who do not know would have the answers equally distributed amount the options