This is the first article of a series where I will share what I’ve learned about writing great test items. Writing test items is what I do. Okay, I review a lot of items and write a few. Either way, I spend my days looking at items that may someday appear on a large-scale educational assessment.
If you want to write a great test item then I believe you must pay serious attention to item alignment. I am not sure of the textbook definition of item alignment. For me the concept is straightforward. You read the standard and then you read the item. If the item assesses the standard then the item is aligned. I was taught that item alignment is about making a professional judgment. If a group of professionals agrees that an item assesses a standard, then the item is aligned with that standard.
Let’s look at an example. What follows is a standard from the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.
Grade 5: Operations and Algebraic Thinking: Use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical expressions, and evaluate expressions with these symbols.
Below is a test question that is aligned to the standard. (This is just the question. I could finish this potential multiple-choice item by writing three options to go with the correct answer.)
What is (5−3)×(6−4)?
This item asks the student to evaluate an expression that contains parenthesis. If a student ignores the parenthesis then he/she may multiply 3 times 6 before completing the subtraction. I believe this item aligns very nicely with the grade 5 standard given above.
Alignment is straightforward when the standard is straightforward. However, not all Common Core standards are as straightforward as the previous example. For example, let’s take a look at another standard from the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.
Grade 5: Geometry: Use a pair of perpendicular number lines, called axes, to define a coordinate system, with the intersection of the lines (the origin) arranged to coincide with the 0 on each line and a given point in the plane located by using an ordered pair of numbers, called its coordinates. Understand that the first number indicates how far to travel from the origin in the direction of one axis, and the second number indicates how far to travel in the direction of the second axis, with the convention that the names of the two axes and the coordinates correspond (e.g., x-axis and x-coordinate, y-axis and y-coordinate).
How do I go about writing an item aligned with this standard? This standard, unlike the first example, does not lend itself to traditional multiple-choice items. This is the dilemma that faces the two assessment consortia (PARCC and Smarter Balanced). I’m very pleased that the consortia decided not to assess this standard with a multiple-choice item. There’s just too much here to boil down to a multiple-choice item.
If you have an idea about how to assess this standard then leave your idea as a comment.
References
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, (2010). Common core state standards for mathematics. Retrieved from website: https://www.thecorestandards.org/Math/
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