Rubrics

The University of Wisconsin-Stout links to many teacher-created rubrics for different instructional assessments.

Dr. Sylvia Shaw of Boston University has created a rubric for grading essays.

The Academy of Art University has a discussion of rubrics for Authentic Assessment.

Many different disciplinary rubrics are found at this California State University website.

Washington State University has created a critical thinking rubric.

Test Construction

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga-Teaching Resource Center outlines the advantages and disadvantages of various test questions.

Cheung and Bucat present a good discussion of the construction of multiple-choice items.

Brigham Young University offers more good information for multiple-choice item writers as well a more general discussion of how to prepare better tests.

The IDEA paper by William Cashin contains information about strengths and weaknesses of essay tests.

This United States Air Force handbook contains information about the learning theory behind the design and development of criterion-referenced tests.

Cornell University outlines the steps involved in constructing teacher-made tests.

The University of California Santa Barbara provides good information for those who are just beginning to experiment with different types of tests. The following list of test construction do’s and don’ts are among their hints.

DO'S:

• Write the test items simply and clearly
• If an item represents a particular opinion, identify the author of the opinion.
• Write clear and unambiguous directions for the test as a whole and for each specific section of the test.
• Assemble items into a test according to some systematic plan, e.g., similar item-types grouped together.
• Devise a system to facilitate scoring the test (e.g., a separate answer sheet and an answer key in the same format).

DON'TS:

• Don't lift a statement verbatim from a textbook.
• Don't provide clues in one item for answers to other items.
• Don't intersperse item-types on the test.
• Avoid writing interdependent items such that the answer to one item is necessary to respond to the next item.
• Avoid items dealing with trivia.
• Avoid trick questions.
• Avoid ambiguity in items.