Writing and grading supply-response, essay questions.
1. Restrict essay question domains to those learning outcomes that cannot be adequately measured using select-response or short-answer supply response items.
Useful for assessing students’ skills in the following processes:
Comparing
Relating cause and effect
Justifying
Summarizing
Generalizing
Inferring
Explaining
Persuading
Classifying
Creating
Applying
Analyzing
Synthesizing
Evaluating
Not as useful for assessing students’ skills in the following processes:
Defining
Recalling
Comparing/Contrast (when domains to be compared are few)
e.g., Tell what you know about “x”.
2. Be specific about the criteria to be used for evaluating the question.
e.g., Write a two page statement defending the importance of conserving our natural resources. Your answer will be evaluated in terms of its organization, its comprehensiveness, and the relevance of the arguments presented.
Or work backwards from your rubric, but don’t confuse your students. A rubric is a grading device, not a tool to help students during the assessment task.
http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/pdfRubrics/6plus1traits.pdf
3. Make the task clear.
Poor: Why do birds migrate?
Better: Write three explanations about why snow geese migrate south in the fall and winter. Indicate the most probable of these explanations and give three reasons for your selection.
4. Indicate a time limit for each question. In addition, tell students the grading weight of the question.
5. Avoid the use of optional questions.
Decreases the validity of the test—the students are taking different tests. Encourages “spot” studying.
http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/pdfRubrics/6plus1traits.pdfhttp://www.nwrel.org/assessment/pdfRubrics/6plus1traits.pdf
http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/pdfRubrics/6plus1traits.pdf