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INTRODUCTION
A test or examination is an assessment intended to measure a test-
takers knowledge, skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or classification in
many other topics (e.g., beliefs). A test may be administered verbally,
on paper, on a computer, or in a confined area that requires a test
taker to physically perform a set of skills. Tests vary in style, rigor and
requirements. For example, in a closed book test, a test taker is often
required to rely upon memory to respond to specific items whereas
in an open book test, a test taker may use one or more supplementary
tools such as a reference book or calculator when responding to an
item. A test may be administered formally or informally. An example
of an informal test would be a reading test administered by a parent
to a child. An example of a formal test would be a final
examination administered by a teacher in a classroom or an I.Q. test
administered by a psychologist in a clinic. Formal testing often results
in a grade or a test score. A test score may be interpreted with
regards to a norm or criterion, or occasionally both. The norm may be
established independently, or by statistical analysis of a large
number of participants. An exam is meant to test a child's knowledge
or willingness to give time to manipulate that subject.
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developed by individual instructors, the format and difficulty of these
tests may not be widely adopted or used by other instructors or
institutions. A non-standardized test may be used to determine the
proficiency level of students, to motivate students to study, and to
provide feedback to students. In some instances, a teacher may
develop non-standardized tests that resemble standardized tests in
scope, format, and difficulty for the purpose of preparing their
students for an upcoming standardized test. In contrasts to non-
standardized tests, standardized tests are widely used, fixed in terms
of scope, difficulty and format, and are usually significant in
consequences. Standardized tests are usually held on fixed dates as
determined by the test developer, educational institution, or
governing body, which may or may not be administered by the
instructor, held within the classroom, or constrained by the classroom
period.
3. MEANING OF UNIT
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Unit means a device that has a specified function, especially one
forming part of a complex mechanism. It is a quantity chosen as a
standard in terms of which other quantities may be expressed. This
is the division of instruction centering on a single theme.
The cycle of teaching and testing is familiar to anyone who has been
a student, but why is testing even necessary?
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According to the Glossary for Educational Reform, summative
assessments are defined by three criteria:
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At the district, state, or national level, standardized tests are an
additional form of summative assessments. The legislation passed in
2002 known as No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated annual
testing in every state. This testing was linked to federal funding of
public schools. The arrival of the Common Core State Standards in
2009 continued state-by-state testing through different testing groups
(PARCC and SBAC) in order to determine student readiness for
college and career. Many states have since developed their own
standardized tests. Examples of standardized tests include the
ITBS for elementary students; and for secondary schools the PSAT,
SAT, ACT as well as Advanced Placement exams.
c. To measure effectiveness
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Until 2016, school funding had been determined by student
performance on state exams.
"To support State and local efforts to reduce testing time, section
1111(b)(2)(L) of the ESEA allows each State, at its discretion, the
option to set a limit on the aggregate amount of time devoted to the
administration of assessments during a school year."
Some states already use or plan to use the results of state tests when
they evaluate and give merit raises to the teachers themselves. This
use of high-stakes testing can be contentious with educators who
believe they cannot control the many factors influence a student's
grade on an exam.
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For example, the PSAT/NMSQT is often given in the 10th grade to
students across the nation. When students become National Merit
Scholars due to their results on this test, they are offered scholarships.
There are an anticipated 7,500 scholarship winners who may receive
$2500 scholarships, corporate-sponsored scholarships, or college-
sponsored scholarships.
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Programs such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) "assess
student work as direct evidence of achievement" that students may
use in college applications.
Curriculum
Curriculum-based monitoring uses standardized tests that include
material presented over the course of the entire year as a way to
effectively and accurately monitor student progress and teaching
methods. All of the concepts for the year appear on each test,
although the questions appear in different forms so students don’t
learn the test.
Frequent Evaluations
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Frequent evaluations that chart student progress can positively
impact how students view themselves as learners, according to
Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, authors of “Inside the Black Box.” This
is especially true with at-risk students. Frequent evaluation though
classroom response, written work, testing and student-teacher
interaction can pinpoint areas where a student needs additional
help or a different type of instruction to achieve successful learning.
Successful learning improves the student’s self-esteem and
motivation to continue to participate in the educational experience.
A teacher and student joint review of the student’s written work can
facilitate an accurate evaluation of progress, or lack thereof, and
provide the teacher with valuable suggestions for adapting
instruction to meet the student’s needs. The teacher can supply the
student with clear targets for progress and enable the student to
map a path to success. Positive feedback provides the student with
valuable motivation and encouragement that can change the
student’s self-perception from a negative outlook to a positive one.
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c) Unit tests are a form of learning activity. They can enable
students to see the material from a different perspective. They
also provide feedback that students can then use to improve their
understanding.
d) Unit tests enable both students and instructors to identify which
areas of the material students do not understand. This allows
students to seek help, and instructors to address areas that may
need more attention, thus enabling student progression and
improvement.
e) You can use tests to evaluate your own teaching. Students’
performance on the exam will pinpoint areas where you should
spend more time or change your current approach.
f) Institutions often want information on how students are doing.
How many are passing and failing, and what is the average
achievement in class? unit tets can provide this information.
g) Certain professions demand that students demonstrate the
acquisition of certain skills or knowledge. An exam can provide
such proof – for example, the Uniform Final Examination (UFE)
serves this purpose in accounting.
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III. Content and objectives coverage: those determined by the
teacher in the classroom
IV. Scoring: subjective and usually biased and judgment
evaluative
V. Purpose and use: measures particular objectives and is used to
make intraclass comparisons
The teacher should make his test plan by following the steps given
below.
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Knowledge or how it is used. The teacher can design your test
questions to assess students’ knowledge or ability to apply
material taught in class.
Process or product. The teacher can test students’ reasoning
skills and evaluate the process by focusing the marks and other
feedback on the process they follow to arrive at a solution.
Alternatively, you can evaluate the end product.
The communication of ideas. The teacher can evaluate students’
communication skills their ability to express themselves - whether
this is by writing a cogent argument, or creating an elegant
mathematical proof.
Convergent thinking or divergent thinking. The teacher can test
your students’ ability to draw a single conclusion from different
inputs Or you may alternatively want them to come up with
different possible answers (divergent thinking). Do you expect
different answers from students, or do you expect all of them to
provide the same answer?
Absolute or relative standards. Is student success defined by
learning a set amount of material or demonstrating certain skills,
or is student success measured by assessing the amount of
progress the students make over the duration of the course?
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Research in cognitive science and psychology shows that testing,
done right, can be an effective way to learn. Taking tests can
produce better recall of facts and a deeper understanding than an
education devoid of exams.
Tests being developed to assess how well students have met the
Common Core State Standards show promise as evaluations of
deep learning.
ii. UNIT TEST IS A SELF EVALUATING DEVICE
Students are confused about the result of the situation. Students want
to learn how and why an observation did not happen the way it would
be. Students reflect the observation for them inorder to satisfy their
curiosity. After they solve problems, they can articulate their answers
in multiple ways. The students decide howmuch they want to learn
about the concept and how they want to achieve the goal. The
teacher regulates the content that the students are learning but the
students decide how they want to explore the concept.
Unit tests are not only done for evaluation of teacher`s effective
teaching and students` learning difficulties, but also for correcting
learning mistakes. This would help the teacher as well as the students to
know about the weakness of the students in different part of the unit. The
learning mistakes lead students to the betterment of their study. They
should learn from their mistakes and take the consequences positively.
The teachers should encourage the students in this case. When a
teacher gives a negative feedback in the answer copy, it creates a bad
impact on the students mind. So the teacher`s feedback would be such
that it will motivate as well as create a positive impact on the students.
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Exams provide teacher with the opportunity to obtain feedback on
student learning, teacher`s teaching methods, and the quality of the test
itself.
Write impressions on your test and keep them. During the test
and the marking of the exam, keep track of which questions seem
to be well understood, and which questions were frequently
misunderstood.
Collect numerical data. If you have machine-scorable tests, you
can get statistics on your questions, such as which questions were
missed most often or which distracters were most often chosen. In
other cases you can collect an overview of the marks.
Get student feedback. You can leave space specifically for
feedback on tests, or you can obtain feedback in class after the
exam. Consider asking your students to complete an test wrapper –
a short survey asking students about exam preparation strategies
they used, what questions they found difficult to answer, and what
they might do differently to prepare for the next exam
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topic knowledge understandin analysing Creating evaluating tota
g l
SCP mc t/f Fill Mcq t/f Fill mc t/f Fill mc t/f Fill mc t/f Fill
q In In q In q In q In
blan blan blan blan blan
k k k k k
Matter in 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7
our
surroundi
ngs
Is matter 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8
around
us pure?
i. PREPARATION OF DESIGN
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c. Minimizing measurement of irrelevancies
a) Knowledge
a. Knows correct definitions
b. Able to list major limitations of different types of items
b) Comprehension
a. Selects correct item type for learning outcome
b. Understands limitations of true-false items
c. Distinguishes poor true-false items from good ones
c) Application
a. Applies construction guidelines to a new content area
b. Creates a table of specifications
d) Analysis
a. Identifies flaws in poor items
b. Lists general and specific learning outcomes
e) Synthesis
a. Lists general and specific content areas
b. Provides weights for areas in table of specifications
f) Evaluation
a. Judges quality of procedure/product
b. Justifies product
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c. Improves a product
a) trends/controversies in assessment
b) interdependence of teaching, learning, and assessment
c) purposes and forms of classroom assessment
d) planning a classroom assessment (item types, table of specs)
e) item types (advantages and limitations)
f) strategies for writing good items
g) compiling and administering classroom assessments
h) evaluating and improving classroom assessments
i) grading and reporting systems
j) uses of standardized tests
k) interpreting standardized test scores
classifications
A. objective--supply-type
a. short answer
b. completion
B. objective--selection-type
a. true-false
b. matching
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c. multiple choice
C. essays
a. extended response
b. restricted response
D. performance-based
a. extended response
b. restricted response
Objective Items
Strengths
o Can have many items
o Highly structured
o Scoring quick, easy, accurate
Limitations
o Cannot assess higher level skills (problem formulation,
organization, creativity)
Essay/Performance Tasks
Strengths
o Can assess higher level skills
o More realistic
Limitations
o Inefficient for measuring knowledge
o Few items (poorer sampling)
o Time consuming
o Scoring difficult, unreliable
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v. SCHEMES OF OPTIONS
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d. don’t have answers in an identifiable pattern
The construction of unit test involves many steps. First of all, I went
to the SRI AUROBINDA INSTITUTE OF HIGHER STUDIES AND
RESEARCH, MATRUNHAVAN,CUTTACK school to bring permission
to conduct the test. There, I got the permission to conduct the test
of class IX students on 20.2.18. Then I decided to do the test of 30
marks (15 from SCP+ 15 from SCL). I asked the teachers about the
completion of course. I collected book from the students and chose
four units of science (2 of physical science & two of bioscience).
Then I prepared a blueprint and started making questions. I gave
priority to the volume of the unit while distributing marks. I prepared
more questions from larger units and less questions from smaller
unit. Since I was allowed to conduct only short-answer type test, so I
chose three types of questions. In bioscience there were 1-multiple
choice, 2- true/false, 3-match the column questions and in physical
science, there were mcq, t/f and fill in the blanks. According to the
blue print, I tried to prepare a standardised question for all the
students. All the questions were written in odia with appropriate
instruction since it is a odia-medium school.
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There are about 120 students studying in class IX in that school.
Class IX consists of 5 sections. Each section has a maximum
strength of 25 students. I was provided one section of class IX. On
the exam day, twentyone students were present. Among them,
twelve were boys and only nine were girls. The classroom has the
facilities of lights and fans. The students of that section were
informed before about the test and the units. The teachers of the
school helped me in the data collection and provided me the the
necessary things.
From the unit test, I got the marks of the students. Their marks are
given below.
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Score of students in science
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BAR GRAPH OF SCIENCE MARKS
16
14
12
10
0
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI
mean
From the above data we can find the mean, median and mode of the
data.
median
9, 11, 12, 12, 12, 14, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, 17, 18, 18, 19, 20, 20, 23, 23, 25, 25
There are 21 numbers in the list. So the middle one be the median.
The middle one is 11 number. th
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Mode
In the above data 12 and 17 are the numbers that have repeated 3
times i.e. more than the other numbers.
The above data shows that the students performance in the unit test
is good. All the students have secured more than 30%marks in this
test. Two students have secured more than 80%, seven students
have scored between 60%-80%, ten students have scored between
40%-60% and two students have secured below 40%. If we make a
gradation of students considering the marks then the pi chart is of the
following type. 15 students have scored more than 50% in physical
science while 15 students also have secured more than 50% marks
in bio science.All the students have secured more than 30% mark. So
the result is satisfactory. But none of them has scored more than 90%.
The highest mark in this unit test is 25 and lowest mark is 9. In physical
science, highest score is 13 and in bioscience , the highest score is
14. From the marks, it ws also found that the girls have scored better
than the boys. This result shows that the students are giving equal
priority to all the subjects.
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GRADE OF STUDENTS
A- GRADE (> 80%) B-GRADE (60%-80%) C-GRADE (40%-60%) D-GRADE (< 40%)
12. CONCLUSION
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There are three primary reasons for Standardized tests: Comparing
among test takers, Improvement of ongoing instruction and learning,
and Evaluation of instruction.
13. SUGGESTIONS
14. REFERENCES
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Cangelosi, J. (1990) "Designing Tests for Evaluating Student
Achievement." NY: Addison-Wesley.
Gronlund, N. (1993) "How to make achievement tests and
assessments," 5th edition, NY: Allyn and Bacon.
Haladyna, T.M. & Downing, S.M. (1989) Validity of a Taxonomy of
Multiple-Choice Item-Writing Rules. "Applied Measurement in
Education," 2(1), 51-78.
Monahan, T. (1998) The Rise of Standardized Educational Testing in
the U.S. – A Bibliographic Overview.
Ravitch, Diane, "The Uses and Misuses of Tests", in The Schools We
Deserve (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp. 172–181
"Different Exam Types - Different Approaches". ExamTime. 2012-02-
21. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
Freeman, D. J., Kuhs, T. M., Porter, A. C., Floden, R. E., Schmidt, W.
H., & Schwille, J. R. (1983). Do textbooks and tests define a natural
curriculum in elementary sschool mathematics? Elementary School
Journal, 83(5), 501–513.
15. APENDIX
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