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1. Planning the Classroom Test
A Test as a Work Sample
A test is a work sample.
It constitutes a selection of all the possible questions that might
be asked. Pupil performance on this sample enables the teacher to generalize
about progress in the total area from which the sample is drawn. Obviously,
for such generalizations to be valid, it is essential that the test
constitute a fair and representative sample of questions. Before a single text question
is written, therefore, the teacher should have clearly in mind what
purpose the test is to serve, what skills and content areas are to be
measured and what their relative weights should be. To ignore these
factors at the outset in preparing a test is to court the danger that
the test, if it constitutes a poor sample of questions, may provide
a misleading picture of pupil progress.
Need for a Test Blueprint
In a test in American history,
for example, some weighting of the political, social and economic aspects
of history is inescapable. What should be the relative contribution
of each to a single score purporting to indicate the pupil's general
progress in all of American history? The problem cannot be solved by
ignoring it. If the relative weights are not predetermined on the basis
of the professional judgment of the teacher, they will be decided by
the accidents of item selection. This problem must be approached
by the teacher in a direct and forthright manner. A good procedure is
to outline beforehand, in written form, exactly what the test should
cover if it is to serve its purpose well and exactly how much weight
should be assigned to the various objectives and areas of the test in
terms of their relative importance. The function of such a test outline
or blueprint is to help assure a fair sampling of items to provide a
test score that will be a valid index of overall pupil progress.
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