20 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

The ultimate goal of teaching is understanding.

But sometimes it’s easier to talk than to teach, as we all know, especially when we need to cover a lot
of material in a short amount of time. We hope students will understand, if not now then before test
time, and we keep our fingers crossed that their results will indicate we’ve done our job.

The problem is, we often rely on these tests to measure understanding and then we move on. There
isn’t always time to address weaknesses and misunderstandings after the tests have been graded, and
the time to help students learn through strategies to ask great questions is gone.

Below are 22 simple assessment strategies and tips to help you become more frequent in your teaching,
planning, and curriculum design.

1. An open-ended question that gets them writing/talking

Avoid yes/no questions and phrases like “Does this make sense?” In response to these questions,
students usually answer ‘yes.’ So, of course, it’s surprising when several students later admit that
they’re lost.

To help students grasp ideas in class, ask open-ended questions that require students that get students
writing/talking. They will undoubtedly reveal more than you would’ve thought to ask directly.

2. Ask students to reflect

During the last five minutes of class ask students to reflect on the lesson and write down what they’ve
learned. Then, ask them to consider how they would apply this concept or skill in a practical setting.

3. Use quizzes

Give a short quiz at the end of class to check for comprehension.

4. Ask students to summarize

Have students summarize or paraphrase important concepts and lessons. This can be done orally,
visually, or otherwise.

5. Hand signals

Hand signals can be used to rate or indicate students’ understanding of content. Students can show
anywhere from five fingers to signal maximum understanding to one finger to signal minimal
understanding. This strategy requires engagement by all students and allows the teacher to check for
understanding within a large group.

6. Response cards

Index cards, signs, whiteboards, magnetic boards, or other items are simultaneously held up by all
students in class to indicate their response to a question or problem presented by the teacher. Using
response devices, the teacher can easily note the responses of individual students while teaching the
whole group.

7. Four corners

A quick and easy snapshot of student understanding, Four Corners provides an opportunity for student
movement while permitting the teacher to monitor and assess understanding.

The teacher poses a question or makes a statement. Students then move to the appropriate corner of the
classroom to indicate their response to the prompt. For example, the corner choices might include “I
strongly agree,” “I strongly disagree,” “I agree somewhat,” and “I’m not sure.”

8. Think-pair-share
Students take a few minutes to think about the question or prompt. Next, they pair with a designated
partner to compare thoughts before sharing with the whole class.

9. Choral reading

Students mark text to identify a particular concept and chime in, reading the marked text aloud in
unison with the teacher. This strategy helps students develop fluency; differentiate between the reading
of statements and questions; and practice phrasing, pacing, and reading dialogue.

10. One question quiz

Ask a single focused question with a specific goal that can be answered within a minute or two. You
can quickly scan the written responses to assess student understanding.

11. Socratic seminar

Students ask questions of one another about an essential question, topic, or selected text. The questions
initiate a conversation that continues with a series of responses and additional questions. Students learn
to formulate questions that address issues to facilitate their own discussion and arrive at a new
understanding.

12. 3-2-1

Students consider what they have learned by responding to the following prompt at the end of the
lesson: 3) things they learned from your lesson; 2) things they want to know more about; and 1)
questions they have. The prompt stimulates student reflection on the lesson and helps to process the
learning.

13. Ticket out the door

Students write in response to a specific prompt for a short period of time. Teachers collect their
responses as a “ticket out the door” to check for students’ understanding of a concept taught. This
exercise quickly generates multiple ideas that could be turned into longer pieces of writing at a later
time.

14. Journal reflections

Students write their reflections on a lesson, such as what they learned, what caused them difficulty,
strategies they found helpful, or other lesson-related topics. Students can reflect on and process lessons.
By reading student work–especially —types of learning journals that help students think–teachers can
identify class and individual misconceptions and successes. (See also

15. Formative pencil–paper assessment

Students respond individually to short, pencil–paper formative assessments of skills and knowledge
taught in the lesson. Teachers may elect to have students self-correct. The teacher collects assessment
results to monitor individual student progress and to inform future instruction.

Both student and teacher can quickly assess whether the student acquired the intended knowledge and
skills. This is a formative assessment, so a grade is not the intended purpose.

16. Misconception check

Present students with common or predictable misconceptions about a concept you’re covering. Ask
them whether they agree or disagree and to explain why.

17. Analogy prompt

Teaching with analogies can be powerful. Periodically, present students with an analogy prompt: “the
concept being covered is like ____ because ____.”

18. Practice frequency

Check for understanding at least three times a lesson, minimum.

19. Use variety

Teachers should use enough different individual and whole group techniques to check understanding
that they accurately know what all students know. More than likely, this means during a single class the
same technique should not be repeated.

20. Make it useful

The true test is whether or not you can adjust your course or continue as planned based on the
information received in each check. Do you need to stop and start over? Pull a few students aside for
three minutes to re-teach? Or move on?

21. Peer instruction

Perhaps the most accurate way to check for understanding is to have one student try to teach another
student what she’s learned. If she can do that successfully, it’s clear she understood your lesson.

22. “Separate what you do and don’t understand”

Whether making a t-chart, drawing a concept map, or using some other means, have the students not
simply list what they think they know, but what they don’t know as well. This won’t be as simple as it
sounds–we’re usually not aware of what we don’t know.

They’ll also often know more or less than they can identify themselves, which makes this strategy a bit
crude. But that’s okay–the goal isn’t for them to be precise and complete in their self-evaluation the
goal is for you to gain insight as to what they do and don’t know.
 Assessing Group Work
All of the basic principles of assessment that apply to individual students’ work apply to group work as
well. Assessing group work has additional aspects to consider, however. First, depending on the
objectives of the assignment, both process- and product-related skills must be assessed. Second, group
performance must be translated into individual grades, which raises issues of fairness and equity.
Complicating both these issues is the fact that neither group processes nor individual contributions are
necessarily apparent in the final product. Thus, instructors need to find ways of obtaining this
information.

The general principles described in the next few sections can be adapted to the context of specific
courses.

Assess process, not just product.

If both product and process are important to you, both should be reflected in students’ grades –
although the weight you accord each will depend on your learning objectives for the course and for the
assignment. Ideally, your grading criteria should be communicated to students in a rubric. This is
especially important if you are emphasizing skills that students are not used to being evaluated on, such
as the ability to cooperate or meet deadlines.

Ask students to assess their own contribution to the team.

Have students evaluate their own teamwork skills and their contributions to the group’s process using a
self-assessment of the process skills you are emphasizing. These process skills may include, among
others, respectfully listening to and considering opposing views or a minority opinion, effectively
managing conflict around differences in ideas or approaches, keeping the group on track both during
and between meetings, promptness in meeting deadlines, and appropriate distribution of research,
analysis, and writing.

Hold individuals accountable.

To motivate individual students and discourage the free-rider phenomenon, it is important to assess
individual contributions and understanding as well as group products and processes. In addition to
evaluating the work of the group as a whole, ask individual students to demonstrate their learning. This
can be accomplished through independent write-ups, weekly journal entries, content quizzes, or other
types of individual assignments.

Ask students to evaluate their group’s dynamics and the

contributions of their teammates.
Gauge what various group members have contributed to the group (e.g., effort, participation,
cooperativeness, accessibility, communication skills) by asking team members to complete an
evaluation form for group processes. This is not a foolproof strategy (students may feel social pressure
to cover for one another). However, when combined with other factors promoting individual
accountability, it can provide you with important information about the dynamics within groups and the
contributions of individual members. If you are gathering feedback from external clients – for example,
in the context of public reviews of students’ performances or creations – this feedback can also be
incorporated into your assessment of group work. Feedback from external clients can address product
(e.g., “Does it work?”, “Is it an effective design?”) or process (e.g., the group’s ability to communicate
effectively, respond appropriately, or meet deadlines) and can be incorporated formally or informally
into the group grade.
 Assessing Student Learning
Assessment Overview
How do you know if your students are achieving your specific learning goals for a course? Class
evaluations and observations provide excellent feedback about student satisfaction and teaching style,
but they don’t provide the important detail of how much your students are learning. Changing the way
you assess student learning can dramatically improve your teaching effectiveness, as it provides
immediate feedback on what works and what doesn’t.

Grading Is Not the Same as Assessing

Traditionally, many teachers have evaluated their students’ knowledge by giving examinations and
papers, often only at the middle and end of the quarter. As a result, a professor lecturing to a large
introductory class might not recognize until final exams are finished that students consistently confused
two important and closely related ideas.

Other professors, who track their students’ work more regularly—through problem sets, for example—
might assume that such written homework is helping achieve a major goal of the course, such as to
develop students’ general problem-solving ability. Yet students who do well on homework might be
unable to apply their knowledge to the novel situations created for exams; they’ve learned how to
follow the textbook examples without understanding larger principles of problem solving.

In-course assessment techniques systematize the process of getting useful and timely feedback on
student learning.

Assess Learning Anonymously

Because in-course assessment techniques are designed to gauge the effectiveness of the teaching and
the quality of the learning taking place (and not simply to see who is or isn’t studying), they are usually
anonymous. These anonymous assignments typically can be completed quickly, and focus on three
areas:

1. students’ academic skills and intellectual development (e.g., do students have sufficient background
knowledge or academic skills to move onto the next topic?)
2. students’ assessments of their own learning skills (e.g., do students feel prepared to learn new material
from the textbook, without classroom review?)
3. students' reactions to various teaching methods, materials, and assignments (e.g., do students believe
the exams fairly cover the material stressed in class?).

Based on this feedback, faculty can adjust their teaching to help students learn. The following are some
examples of assessment techniques you might consider using:

Documented Problem Solution

Rather than simply requiring students to do a number of problems for homework, the instructor asks
students to solve a problem and also to write down step-by-step what they were thinking at each stage
of the problem-solving process. Reading through these solutions gives an instructor a sense of how well
the students are developing their problem-solving skills and can help the instructor determine how
much class or section time should focus on improving this academic skill.

Studies of Time Spent Learning

This technique asks students to estimate, check, document, and reflect on how well they use study time.
Using one assignment or activity, students estimate how much time it should take to finish the task and
then monitor themselves as they complete the assignment. Afterward they write a brief account of the
process and the results. In reading these accounts, teachers can gain a sense of how well students use
their time and whether students’ learning skills are developed sufficiently to handle the course load.
Students become much more aware of their habits regarding study time and this awareness usually
encourages them to use their study time more effectively.
One-minute Papers

The teacher ends class a few minutes early and asks one or two questions that students answer, on
index cards or notebook paper, and hand in. Questions often asked are, “What were the main points of
today’s class?” or “What point or example in today’s lecture would you like to see reviewed or
clarified?” Even in a large class, reading through student responses takes relatively little time. At the
next class session, teachers can address questions or problems students have raised.

In short, good assessment techniques both assess and teach; the time spent doing these assignments
helps students learn more effectively and efficiently. When students are encouraged to take the time to
gauge what they know and how well developed their learning and academic skills are, they begin to
recognize the importance of learning how to learn, as well as the importance of course content.

VPTL sponsors workshops and provides individual consultation on in-course assessment techniques.
You can also consult Angelo, T. & Cross, P. (1993) Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for
college teachers (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass) for an excellent and comprehensive treatment of
assessment techniques. This page has drawn heavily on their work.

Assessing student learning

Practices related to grading—both as an assessment of student performance and as a mechanism
through which students receive feedback on their work—vary widely across disciplines, course levels,
departments, institutions and instructors. However, there are several strategies that most instructors
agree contribute to successful grading:

 Creating clear grading criteria

 Communicating these criteria to students
 Giving constructive feedback
 Employing time management strategies when grading large amounts of student work

This collection of pages provides an overview of key issues related to assessing student learning:

 Establishing assessment standards

 Constructing tests
 Keeping records
 Cheating and plagiarism
 Additional resources

Establish assessment standards

It is strongly suggested that you explain assessment standards clearly when you introduce the course to
your students and probably at several subsequent points during the quarter as well. Most students use
grading criteria to determine what they should concentrate on learning in a course. By making your
grading policies clear, you can focus students’ attention on what is most important for them to learn
and retain.

Because grades communicate the relative weight of course goals and assignments and because grades
in a course may have great influence on students’ future academic work, most students are very
sensitive about grades and the criteria on which they are based: “Will this be on the test? How much
does the quiz count toward the final grade? Do you consider attendance and participation?” are typical
questions. Determine assessment criteria from the onset, it is helpful to explain these standards clearly
to students and reinforce their application consistently throughout the quarter.

Consistency is also important when it comes to concerns such as accepting late papers and taking more
than the time allotted for an exam. Attention to these matters in the beginning will save you time and
energy later.
Keeping records
There are a number of tech tools to help you keep accurate records. One such tool is GradeBook. Contact UW-
IT for a comprehensive list of options and assistance.

Keep accurate and thorough records of your evaluation of each student’s performance throughout the
quarter. You should also keep your records for a while after the quarter is over, since students may
come back later to question a grade, finish an incomplete or ask you to write a recommendation. Your
records will help you to justify and/or reevaluate a student’s final grade if necessary.

When students ask to have a grade changed or contest an answer, act carefully. Give yourself time for
further investigation in order to help you prepare a fair and equitable response. You should note that
UW policy states that “Except in the case of error, no instructor may change a grade that he or she has
turned into the Registrar. Grades cannot be changed after a degree has been granted.” See UW Policy
Director on Grades, Honors and Scholarship for more information.

If a student comes to you to contest a grade it may be helpful to have the student submit their request in
writing, requiring the student to reflect on and justify their request and also providing you with
documentation should you be asked to explain your decision at a later point. Finally, document your
interactions with disgruntled students as promptly as possible so you have accurate notes for a
subsequent discussion.

Information for TAs: Assessing student learning

 Develop a sense of your academic standards early on in the quarter in collaboration with your
supervising faculty member and fellow TAs (if applicable).

 Be consistent throughout the quarter. If you are working with other TAs plan to meet and talk about
grading criteria and approaches. This will ensure reliability and consistency across the entire scope of
the lecture class. If, for example, your grades are skewed at the high or low end, or are not in line with
your colleagues, meet with your colleagues to discuss what your questions or assignments are
designed to evaluate. Comparing grades on a set of essays can be one of the most productive ways of
arriving at a common language and standard for assessment.

 If a student contests a grade, consider who responsible for decisions about grade changes. Act carefully
and in consultation with your supervising faculty member or TA coordinator.

 In cases of cheating or plagiarism, the TA does not have authority to take formal disciplinary action
(See The University of Washington Student Conduct Code). Consult with your TA coordinator and/or
supervising faculty member as soon as possible.

Creating and Using Rubrics

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly describes the instructor’s performance expectations for an
assignment or piece of work. A rubric identifies:

 criteria: the aspects of performance (e.g., argument, evidence, clarity) that will be assessed
 descriptors: the characteristics associated with each dimension (e.g., argument is demonstrable and
original, evidence is diverse and compelling)
 performance levels: a rating scale that identifies students’ level of mastery within each criterion

Rubrics can be used to provide feedback to students on diverse types of assignments, from papers,
projects, and oral presentations to artistic performances and group projects.

Benefitting from Rubrics

A carefully designed rubric can offer a number of benefits to instructors. Rubrics help instructors to:

 reduce the time spent grading by allowing instructors to refer to a substantive description without
writing long comments
 help instructors more clearly identify strengths and weaknesses across an entire class and adjust their
instruction appropriately
 help to ensure consistency across time and across graders
 reduce the uncertainty which can accompany grading
 discourage complaints about grades

An effective rubric can also offer several important benefits to students. Rubrics help students to:

 understand instructors’ expectations and standards

 use instructor feedback to improve their performance
 monitor and assess their progress as they work towards clearly indicated goals
 recognize their strengths and weaknesses and direct their efforts accordingly

Examples of Rubrics
Here we are providing a sample set of rubrics designed by faculty at Carnegie Mellon and other
institutions. Although your particular field of study or type of assessment may not be represented,
viewing a rubric that is designed for a similar assessment may give you ideas for the kinds of criteria,
descriptions, and performance levels you use on your own rubric.

Paper

 Example 1: Philosophy Paper This rubric was designed for student papers in a range of courses in
philosophy (Carnegie Mellon).
 Example 2: Psychology Assignment Short, concept application homework assignment in cognitive
psychology (Carnegie Mellon).
 Example 3: Anthropology Writing Assignments This rubric was designed for a series of short writing
assignments in anthropology (Carnegie Mellon).
 Example 4: History Research Paper. This rubric was designed for essays and research papers in history
(Carnegie Mellon).

Projects

 Example 1: Capstone Project in Design This rubric describes the components and standards of
performance from the research phase to the final presentation for a senior capstone project in design
(Carnegie Mellon).
 Example 2: Engineering Design Project This rubric describes performance standards for three aspects of
a team project: research and design, communication, and team work.

Oral Presentations

 Example 1: Oral Exam This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing
performance on an oral exam in an upper-division course in history (Carnegie Mellon).
 Example 2: Oral Communication This rubric is adapted from Huba and Freed, 2000.
 Example 3: Group Presentations This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing
group presentations in history (Carnegie Mellon).

Class Participation/Contributions

 Example 1: Discussion Class This rubric assesses the quality of student contributions to class
discussions. This is appropriate for an undergraduate-level course (Carnegie Mellon).
 Example 2: Advanced Seminar This rubric is designed for assessing discussion performance in an
advanced undergraduate or graduate seminar.
 Creating Assignments
Here are some general suggestions and questions to consider when creating assignments. There are also
many other resources in print and on the web that provide examples of interesting, discipline-specific
assignment ideas.

Consider your learning objectives.

What do you want students to learn in your course? What could they do that would show you that they
have learned it? To determine assignments that truly serve your course objectives, it is useful to write
out your objectives in this form: I want my students to be able to ____. Use active, measurable verbs as
you complete that sentence (e.g., compare theories, discuss ramifications, recommend strategies), and
your learning objectives will point you towards suitable assignments.

Design assignments that are interesting and challenging.

This is the fun side of assignment design. Consider how to focus students’ thinking in ways that are
creative, challenging, and motivating. Think beyond the conventional assignment type! For example,
one American historian requires students to write diary entries for a hypothetical Nebraska farmwoman
in the 1890s. By specifying that students’ diary entries must demonstrate the breadth of their historical
knowledge (e.g., gender, economics, technology, diet, family structure), the instructor gets students to
exercise their imaginations while also accomplishing the learning objectives of the course (Walvoord &
Anderson, 1989, p. 25).

Double-check alignment.

After creating your assignments, go back to your learning objectives and make sure there is still a good
match between what you want students to learn and what you are asking them to do. If you find a
mismatch, you will need to adjust either the assignments or the learning objectives. For instance, if
your goal is for students to be able to analyze and evaluate texts, but your assignments only ask them to
summarize texts, you would need to add an analytical and evaluative dimension to some assignments or
rethink your learning objectives.

Name assignments accurately.

Students can be misled by assignments that are named inappropriately. For example, if you want
students to analyze a product’s strengths and weaknesses but you call the assignment a “product
description,” students may focus all their energies on the descriptive, not the critical, elements of the
task. Thus, it is important to ensure that the titles of your assignments communicate their intention
accurately to students.

Consider sequencing.

Think about how to order your assignments so that they build skills in a logical sequence. Ideally,
assignments that require the most synthesis of skills and knowledge should come later in the semester,
preceded by smaller assignments that build these skills incrementally. For example, if an instructor’s
final assignment is a research project that requires students to evaluate a technological solution to an
environmental problem, earlier assignments should reinforce component skills, including the ability to
identify and discuss key environmental issues, apply evaluative criteria, and find appropriate research
sources.

Think about scheduling.

Consider your intended assignments in relation to the academic calendar and decide how they can be
reasonably spaced throughout the semester, taking into account holidays and key campus events.
Consider how long it will take students to complete all parts of the assignment (e.g., planning, library
research, reading, coordinating groups, writing, integrating the contributions of team members,
developing a presentation), and be sure to allow sufficient time between assignments.

Check feasibility.

Is the workload you have in mind reasonable for your students? Is the grading burden manageable for
you? Sometimes there are ways to reduce workload (whether for you or for students) without
compromising learning objectives. For example, if a primary objective in assigning a project is for
students to identify an interesting engineering problem and do some preliminary research on it, it might
be reasonable to require students to submit a project proposal and annotated bibliography rather than a
fully developed report. If your learning objectives are clear, you will see where corners can be cut
without sacrificing educational quality.

Articulate the task description clearly.

If an assignment is vague, students may interpret it any number of ways – and not necessarily how you
intended. Thus, it is critical to clearly and unambiguously identify the task students are to do (e.g.,
design a website to help high school students locate environmental resources, create an annotated
bibliography of readings on apartheid). It can be helpful to differentiate the central task (what students
are supposed to produce) from other advice and information you provide in your assignment
description.

Establish clear performance criteria.

Different instructors apply different criteria when grading student work, so it’s important that you
clearly articulate to students what your criteria are. To do so, think about the best student work you
have seen on similar tasks and try to identify the specific characteristics that made it excellent, such as
clarity of thought, originality, logical organization, or use of a wide range of sources. Then identify the
characteristics of the worst student work you have seen, such as shaky evidence, weak organizational
structure, or lack of focus. Identifying these characteristics can help you consciously articulate the
criteria you already apply. It is important to communicate these criteria to students, whether in your
assignment description or as a separate rubric or scoring guide. Clearly articulated performance criteria
can prevent unnecessary confusion about your expectations while also setting a high standard for
students to meet.

Specify the intended audience.

Students make assumptions about the audience they are addressing in papers and presentations, which
influences how they pitch their message. For example, students may assume that, since the instructor is
their primary audience, they do not need to define discipline-specific terms or concepts. These
assumptions may not match the instructor’s expectations. Thus, it is important on assignments to
specify the intended audience http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm (e.g., undergraduates with no
biology background, a potential funder who does not know engineering).

Specify the purpose of the assignment.

If students are unclear about the goals or purpose of the assignment, they may make unnecessary
mistakes. For example, if students believe an assignment is focused on summarizing research as
opposed to evaluating it, they may seriously miscalculate the task and put their energies in the wrong
place. The same is true they think the goal of an economics problem set is to find the correct answer,
rather than demonstrate a clear chain of economic reasoning. Consequently, it is important to make
your objectives for the assignment clear to students.

Specify the parameters.

If you have specific parameters in mind for the assignment (e.g., length, size, formatting, citation
conventions) you should be sure to specify them in your assignment description. Otherwise, students
may misapply conventions and formats they learned in other courses that are not appropriate for yours.

A Checklist for Designing Assignments

Here is a set of questions you can ask yourself when creating an assignment.

Have I...

 Provided a written description of the assignment (in the syllabus or in a separate document)?
 Specified the purpose of the assignment?
 Indicated the intended audience?
 Articulated the instructions in precise and unambiguous language?
  Provided information about the appropriate format and presentation (e.g., page length, typed, cover
sheet, bibliography)?
 Indicated special instructions, such as a particular citation style or headings?
 Specified the due date and the consequences for missing it?
 Articulated performance criteria clearly?
 Indicated the assignment’s point value or percentage of the course grade?
 Provided students (where appropriate) with models or samples?

Creating Exams
How can you design fair, yet challenging, exams that accurately gauge student learning? Here are some
general guidelines. There are also many resources, in print and on the web, that offer strategies for
designing particular kinds of exams, such as multiple-choice.

Choose appropriate item types for your objectives.

Should you assign essay questions on your exams? Problem sets? Multiple-choice questions? It
depends on your learning objectives. For example, if you want students to articulate or justify an
economic argument, then multiple-choice questions are a poor choice because they do not require
students to articulate anything. However, multiple-choice questions (if well-constructed) might
effectively assess students’ ability to recognize a logical economic argument or to distinguish it from
an illogical one. If your goal is for students to match technical terms to their definitions, essay
questions may not be as efficient a means of assessment as a simple matching task. There is no single
best type of exam question: the important thing is that the questions reflect your learning objectives.

Highlight how the exam aligns with course objectives.

Identify which course objectives the exam addresses (e.g., “This exam assesses your ability to use
sociological terminology appropriately, and to apply the principles we have learned in the course to
date”). This helps students see how the components of the course align, reassures them about their
ability to perform well (assuming they have done the required work), and activates relevant experiences
and knowledge from earlier in the course.

Write instructions that are clear, explicit, and unambiguous.

Make sure that students know exactly what you want them to do. Be more explicit about your
expectations than you may think is necessary. Otherwise, students may make assumptions that run
them into trouble. For example, they may assume – perhaps based on experiences in another course –
that an in-class exam is open book or that they can collaborate with classmates on a take-home exam,
which you may not allow. Preferably, you should articulate these expectations to students before they
take the exam as well as in the exam instructions. You also might want to explain in your instructions
how fully you want students to answer questions (for example, to specify if you want answers to be
written in paragraphs or bullet points or if you want students to show all steps in problem-solving.)

Write instructions that preview the exam.

Students’ test-taking skills may not be very effective, leading them to use their time poorly during an
exam. Instructions can prepare students for what they are about to be asked by previewing the format of
the exam, including question type and point value (e.g., there will be 10 multiple-choice questions,
each worth two points, and two essay questions, each worth 15 points). This helps students use their
time more effectively during the exam.
Word questions clearly and simply.

Avoid complex and convoluted sentence constructions, double negatives, and idiomatic language that
may be difficult for students, especially international students, to understand. Also, in multiple-choice
questions, avoid using absolutes such as “never” or “always,” which can lead to confusion.

Enlist a colleague or TA to read through your exam.

Sometimes instructions or questions that seem perfectly clear to you are not as clear as you believe.
Thus, it can be a good idea to ask a colleague or TA to read through (or even take) your exam to make
sure everything is clear and unambiguous.

Think about how long it will take students to complete the exam.

When students are under time pressure, they may make mistakes that have nothing to do with the extent
of their learning. Thus, unless your goal is to assess how students perform under time pressure, it is
important to design exams that can be reasonably completed in the time allotted. One way to determine
how long an exam will take students to complete is to take it yourself and allow students triple the time
it took you – or reduce the length or difficulty of the exam.

Consider the point value of different question types.

The point value you ascribe to different questions should be in line with their difficulty, as well as the
length of time they are likely to take and the importance of the skills they assess. It is not always easy
when you are an expert in the field to determine how difficult a question will be for students, so ask
yourself: How many subskills are involved? Have students answered questions like this before, or will
this be new to them? Are there common traps or misconceptions that students may fall into when
answering this question? Needless to say, difficult and complex question types should be assigned
higher point values than easier, simpler question types. Similarly, questions that assess pivotal
knowledge and skills should be given higher point values than questions that assess less critical
knowledge.

Think ahead to how you will score students’ work.

When assigning point values, it is useful to think ahead to how you will score students’ answers. Will
you give partial credit if a student gets some elements of an answer right? If so, you might want to
break the desired answer into components and decide how many points you would give a student for
correctly answering each. Thinking this through in advance can make it considerably easier to assign
partial credit when you do the actual grading. For example, if a short answer question involves four
discrete components, assigning a point value that is divisible by four makes grading easier.

Creating objective test questions

Creating objective test questions – such as multiple-choice questions – can be difficult, but here are
some general rules to remember that complement the strategies in the previous section.

 Write objective test questions so that there is one and only one best answer.
 Word questions clearly and simply, avoiding double negatives, idiomatic language, and absolutes such
as “never” or “always.”
 Test only a single idea in each item.
 Make sure wrong answers (distractors) are plausible.
 Incorporate common student errors as distractors.
 Make sure the position of the correct answer (e.g., A, B, C, D) varies randomly from item to item.
 Include from three to five options for each item.
 Make sure the length of response items is roughly the same for each question.
 Keep the length of response items short.
 Make sure there are no grammatical clues to the correct answer (e.g., the use of “a” or “an” can tip the
test-taker off to an answer beginning with a vowel or consonant).
 Format the exam so that response options are indented and in column form.
 In multiple choice questions, use positive phrasing in the stem, avoiding words like “not” and “except.”
If this is unavoidable, highlight the negative words (e.g., “Which of the following is NOT an example
of…?”).
 Avoid overlapping alternatives.
 Avoid using “All of the above” and “None of the above” in responses. (In the case of “All of the above,”
students only need to know that two of the options are correct to answer the question. Conversely,
students only need to eliminate one response to eliminate “All of the above” as an answer. Similarly,
when “None of the above” is used as the correct answer choice, it tests students’ ability to detect
incorrect answers, but not whether they know the correct answer.)