Three Most Important Factors For Test Items

When designing and creating test items, it is essential to pay attention to several key factors. Testing is necessary to track the quality of work and the delivery of health services. First, filling out test forms should reflect real-life situations. The main goal of the learning process is to acquire new knowledge that can be applied in practice. If new knowledge is not used in any way, the question arises about receiving such information. Second, each item must contain the correct answer, if the problem is theoretical or implies a person’s attitude to a particular process, the test will not reflect the real level of knowledge (Oermann & Gaberson, 2017). The correct answer is necessary to compare the results of the respondents and obtain objective data. Third, evaluating the items requires outside professional criticism, which is best achieved through colleagues’ participation from the same field. The more competent people are involved in the assessment process, the better the survey results will demonstrate real knowledge.

The above factors are the most important in evaluating surveys since all of them, in combination, provide the maximum objectivity of the assessment. A central aspect of any grading system is that the respondents must have the same conditions for answering (de Zubielqui et al., 2019). In addition, identical assessment criteria are required for each participant since otherwise, the answers will demonstrate the respondents’ subjective opinions and verifiers. It is worth noting that other factors create test items: correct formulation of words in a sentence, literacy of composition, use of particular vocabulary, and avoidance of slang words, which also impact objective assessment. However, they are secondary since they accompany the survey itself rather than form a test item’s structure.

References

Oermann, M. H., & Gaberson, K. B. (2017). Evaluation and testing in nursing education (6th ed.). Springer Publishing Company.

de Zubielqui, G. C., Lindsay, N., Lindsay, W., & Jones, J. (2019). Knowledge quality, innovation and firm performance: A study of knowledge transfer in SMEs. Small Business Economics, 53(1), 145-164.