A Terse Self-Test about Testing

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A Terse Self-Test about Testing

• From Popham (2005), Page 3

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• 1.The chief reason that teachers should give
  classroom tests is to determine students grades
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• While the use of tests to determine grades is an
  important use of tests it is not the only, or
  even the most important use of tests.
• Other important uses of tests are
• Diagnose students strengths and weaknesses,
• Monitoring students progress,
• Determining instructional effectiveness,
• Influence perceptions of educnl effectiveness,
• Evaluating teachers,
• Clarification of instructional intentions.

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• 2. Teachers should typically plan instruction
  that focuses on the skills or knowledge
  represented by a test.
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• First consider the reason for giving a test in
  the first place.
• Why give a test that is NOT aimed at assessing
  important instructional/learning targets?
• If we know, beforehand, what we want students to
  know and be able to do AND we are able to
  determine what we would accept as evidence that
  students have attained this knowledge than why
  not aim instruction at that knowledge?
• A test is nothing more than a vehicle for
  collecting the evidence we seek.

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• 3. In their classroom tests, teachers should only
  use items that can be scored objectively
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• Objective tests (e.g., multiple-choice tests,
  matching tests, true-false tests, short-answer,
  and fill-in-the-blanks tests) can be used,
  effectively, in a wide variety of situations.
• But there are many situations, like assessing
  students ability to argue persuasively, or their
  facility in speaking a foreign language, that
  require teacher judgement.

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• 4. There are other legitimate indicators of a
  teachers instructional effectiveness besides
  students test scores
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• The current trend, especially in light of NCLB,
  is to evaluate teachers instructional
  effectiveness in terms of students test scores.
• However, several reasons can be given for why
  this may be inappropriate (these will be
  discussed later in this course).
• Teachers can influence students, positively, in
  many ways that are not amenable to assessment via
  test scores.

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• 5. A teacher has no business measuring students
  confidence in their ability to do school work
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• There are those who would argue that assessing
  students confidence in their ability is
  irrelevant or, at least, unimportant.
• On the other hand, there is ample research that
  shows that students confidence in their own
  ability (often called self-efficacy) is strongly
  related to their performance.

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• 6. Nationally standardize achievement tests
  should never be used to supply evidence about how
  well teachers are instructing children
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• Nationally standardized tests are designed,
  mainly, to assess student achievement relative to
  national norming groups. They are not
  particularly sensitive to individual differences
  in instruction or to differences in groups being
  instructed.
• Mismatches can, and often do, occur between what
  is tested and what is taught.
• Important teacher-stressed content is often
  excluded.
• Attribution for good (or poor) performance on
  these tests is often questionable.

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• 7. Teachers really do not need to determine the
  reliability of their own classroom tests
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• It certainly is important for teachers to know
  what reliability is, and to have a basic
  understanding of how it is computed and
  interpreted--especially since they are often
  called upon to explain standard tests results.
• However, other that the fact that it can impact
  validity, reliability plays a relatively small
  role in classroom tests (most have low
  reliability anyway).
• Teachers generally collect, and base
  educationally-relevant judgments on, a large
  assortment of assessment data.

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• 8. It is impossible to judge the quality of
  students written compositions with any
  meaningful accuracy
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• Judging written work obviously involves teacher
  judgment, which by its very nature is subjective.
• Often, attributes and characteristics of the
  written work that are irrelevant to the response
  requested influence the judgment.
• However, with the careful use of well-designed
  rubrics, much of the capriciousness involved
  judging written work can be eliminatedor at
  least curtailed.
• Judges can be trained, easily, to evaluate
  written work.

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• 9. The enormous pressure to boost students
  scores on important tests permits teachers to
  employ almost any sort of score-improvement
  preparation alternatives
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• There are test-preparation procedures and
  techniques that can be considered educationally
  and ethically defensible and there are techniques
  whose educational and ethical defensibility is
  questionable.
• One question to ask Is performance on the test a
  consequence of learning or is it a consequence of
  the test-prep procedure?

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• 10. Significant classroom tests should almost
  always be constructed prior to a teachers
  instructional planning
• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Uncertain
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

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• If important classroom tests are designed to
  assess significant learning outcomes (learning
  targets), then designing such tests requires that
  the teacher has clear understanding of what is to
  be taught and, more importantly, what the student
  should know and be able to do. By deciding
  beforehand what evidence of accomplishment is
  acceptable the teacher is in a good position to
  design the instruction.