NORWALK, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--What’s the first thing the author of a test should do? If you think that writing the first question is a good way to start, think again.
A new white paper from assessment technologies and services provider Questionmark offers instructional designers, test authors and other learning professionals valuable tips for creating high-quality tests efficiently – starting with careful planning rather than writing any test items.
Five Steps to Better Tests explains best practices for five key processes:
1. Planning the test: what to consider before writing any questions
2.
Creating the test items: how to ensure questions are fair, avoiding bias
and stereotypes
3. Creating the test form: including developing
instructions and setting passing scores
4. Delivering the test:
providing for secure delivery and controlling item exposure
5.
Evaluating the test: How to use item-level and test-level data to
improve the quality of an assessment
Questionmark Product Owner Doug Peterson, who wrote the white paper, has extensive experience in workforce development. His previous roles included researching and writing IT training materials, authoring self-paced e-learning courses, developing online assessments and teaching in the classroom as well as online.
“Following good practices in creating assessments makes for trustable results,” says Peterson. “This white paper should help readers start out right by carefully planning their tests to establish validity and reliability – and following through with careful attention to the quality of test items and overall content, secure delivery and thorough analysis of the results. The paper reflects our desire not only to provide tools and technologies for delivering and analyzing assessments, but also to create learning resources that help people make effective use of them.”
This 16-page paper is available for free download here.
About Questionmark
Questionmark technologies and services enable organizations to measure knowledge, skills and attitudes for certification, regulatory compliance, successful learning outcomes, performance improvement and talent management. Questionmark’s assessment management system, available OnDemand or for on-premise deployment, enables collaborative, multilingual authoring; multiple delivery options including mobile devices; trustable results and comprehensive analytics that provide stakeholders valuable, actionable data.
Questionmark’s flexible APIs and support of major industry standards ensure interoperability with a variety of enterprise systems. Questionmark OnDemand, a scalable, rapidly-deployable SaaS solution, offers 99.9+% uptime, available 24/7 support, and the peace-of-mind of a secure, Cybertrust-certified, SSAE 16 audited datacenter.
Complete details are available at www.questionmark.com. The Questionmark Blog provides assessment-related news, interviews, insights and best practices.
