Practical Guidelines For Developing Good EFL Test Items

I want to guarantee you understand some terms. This is important before providing you with guidelines for writing good EFL test items. These terms are used in testing. Here are the terms you should be familiar with.

1. Test Blueprint (or Test Specifications)

It identifies the objectives and skills that you test and the relative weight of the test given to each. Being aware of this statement should precede any development of the test items. The test developer should construct the test according to these specifications. The existence of this blueprint is the crucial first step in the test development process.

One must be mindful that the test specifications cannot and should not remain static.

Pedagogy is not static. Experts continually review and modify specifications for each test. They do this to reflect the current state of knowledge.

2. Test Items

They are questions on the test. Each item should measure only a single objective. Each objective should be measured by one or several items. This depends on the test specifications.

Note: “EFL” stands for English as a foreign language.

3. Good Test Items

It means those test items that are mainly valid and reliable. To know the meaning of valid, reliable, and more characteristics of  a good test, you can take a look at the following article on my blog:

4. Item Type

It is the kind of question that measures knowledge, skills, or both.

The blueprint indicates the skills and content to be measured by the item types.

The selection of item types should depend on the kinds of skills the test composer measures. It should not rely on personal likes or dislikes for a particular item type.

Using multiple-choice questions can be effective for large-group testing. This applies when assessing knowledge of the mechanics of English. This type of item is not generally appropriate, though, as a direct measure of writing skill. If you want to know whether a student can write a clear essay, choose an essay or free-response type. It is better than a multiple-choice question type.

Multiple-Choice Item

It is the most common objective-type item. A multiple-choice item is a test question. It offers several alternative choices. The student must select the correct answer. It is generally recommended that one uses 4 or 5 choices per question, whenever possible. Using fewer alternatives often results in items with inferior characteristics. The item choices are typically identified on the test copy by the letters A through E.

1. The stem 

It is the part of the multiple-choice item in which the problem is stated for the student. It can be a question, a set of directions or a statement with an embedded blank.

2. Options/Alternatives

They are the choices given for the embedded blank in the stem of the multiple-choice item.

3. The key 

It is the correct choice for the multiple-choice item.

4. Distractors

They are the incorrect choices for the multiple-choice item.

General Guidelines for Writing All Types of Items.

These guidelines should be considered when writing all types of items:

• Write items to measure what students know, not what you know, or what they do not know.
• Avoid humorous items. Classroom testing is very important. Humorous items may cause students to not take the exam seriously. They can also become confused or anxious.
• Each item should be as short and verbally uncomplicated as possible. Give as much context as necessary to answer the question, but do not include superfluous information. Be careful not to test reading ability to answer the test item.
• Keep each item independent from other items. Don’t give the answer away to another item.
• Try to test a different point in each question.
• Avoid items based on personal opinions unless supported by evidence or referenced sources. (e.g., According to the author of this passage, . . .).

Consider the Following When Reviewing All Types of Items:

• Decide if the items measure knowledge or skills. These should be worthwhile and appropriate for the students being tested.
• Is there a better item to test than any item tests?
• Whether the items are of the appropriate level of difficulty for the students who will be tested.

Guidelines for Writing Multiple-Choice Test Items.

Guidelines for preparing multiple-choice test items.

• The entire stem must always precede the alternatives and it should contain the problem and any clarifications.
• Avoid negatively stated stems.
• If an omission occurs in the stem, it should appear near the end. It should not be at the beginning.
• Use only correct grammar in the stem and alternatives.
• Avoid repeating words between the stem and key. You can do that, nevertheless, to make distractors more attractive.
• Avoid wording directly from a reading passage or use of stereotyped phrasing in the key.
• Try to avoid “all of the above” as the last choice. If a student can remove any of the other choices, this choice can be automatically eliminated as well.
• To test understanding of a term or concept, introduce the term in the stem. Follow it with definitions or descriptions in the alternatives.
• Do not use “none of the above” as the last choice. The correct answer should simply be the best answer among the choices offered.
• Avoid terms like “always” or “never,” as they generally signal incorrect choices.

Guidelines for good alternatives

• Use a logical sequence for alternatives (e.g., temporal sequence, length of the choice). Place two alternatives next to one another if they are very similar cognitively or visually. This positioning helps students compare them more easily.
• Make all incorrect alternatives (i.e., distractors) plausible and attractive. It is often useful to use popular misconceptions and frequent mistakes as distractors.
• Make all alternatives grammatically consistent with the stem.
• Item distractors should include only correct forms and vocabulary that actually exist in the language.
• Use 4 or 5 alternatives in each item.
• If one or more alternatives are partially correct, ask for the “best” answer.
• Alternatives should not overlap in meaning or be synonymous with one another.
• All alternatives should be homogeneous in content, form, and grammatical structure.
• The length, explicitness, and technical information in each choice should be similar. This prevents giving away the correct answer.

Guidelines for reviewing multiple-choice items

Consider whether the stem:

• presents a clearly defined problem or task to the student,
• includes unnecessary information,
• could be more simple, clear or concise.

Consider whether the alternatives:

• are parallel in structure,
• fit logically and grammatically with the stem,
• could be more simple, clearly or concise,
• are so inclusive that they logically remove any other choice from being a possible answer.

Consider whether the key

• is the best answer among the set of options for the item,
• actually, answers the question posed in the stem,
• is too obvious compared to the other alternatives.

Consider whether the distractors

• contain one or more items a student can consider as a correct answer,
• are plausible enough to be attractive to students who are low achievers
• contain one or more that can call attention to the key.

Guidelines for Writing Essay Test Items.

Essay items are useful when students have to show their writing ability. This type of item is difficult to score reliably. Grading them can take a significant amount of time.

Grading is often affected by verbal fluency in the answer. Handwriting also plays a role. There is an impact from the presence or lack of spelling errors. The grammar used can affect the outcome. The subjective judgments of the grader are often influential too.

Training of graders can take a significant amount of time. It needs to be repeated at frequent intervals throughout the grading process.

The following guidelines may be useful in developing and grading essay questions:

• The shorter the answer required for a given essay item, the better. Factors like verbal fluency, spelling, etc., have less of an opportunity to influence the grader. Help the students focus their answers by giving them a starting sentence for their essay.
• Make sure questions are sharply focused on a single issue. Do not give either the student or the grader too much freedom in determining what the answer should be.

Guidelines for Grading Essay Tests.

Because of their subjective nature, essay exams are difficult to grade.

Guidelines for grading essay exams in a consistent and meaningful way.

• Construct a model answer for each item and award a point for each essential element of the model answer. This should help reduce the subjective effects of grading.
• Essay items must be graded anonymously if at all possible to reduce the subjectivity of the graders. That is, graders should not be informed as to the identity of the students whose papers they are grading.
• Grade a single essay item at a time. This helps the grader keep a single set of criteria for awarding points to the response. Also, it tends to reduce the influence of the student’s earlier performance on other items.
• Unless it is a test of language mechanics, do not take credit for poor handwriting. Ignore spelling errors, poor grammar, and failure to punctuate properly.
• Ideally, there should be two graders for each item. A third-grader must resolve any disagreements between the two graders. Normally, this third-grader is the head grader or course instructor.

Guidelines for Test Construction.

The following are general rules and guidelines for assembling test forms. When reviewing a test before administering, verify that the test conforms with the following test construction guidelines.

Test Construction Guidelines for Multiple-Choice Tests.

• Set the number of items so that at least 95 per cent of the students can answer all items.
• The correct choice should appear about an equal number of times in each response position.
• Do not use any pattern of correct responses, e.g., A, B, C, D. E, etc.
• Write directions to students on the test to show whether you allow guessing or not.

Test Construction Guidelines for Essay Tests.

• All students must take the same items. Do not give them a chance to choose which items they want to answer. Meaningful comparisons normally can be made only if all students take the same test.

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