Tools and Resources

This document suggests a variety of testing models and explains why each is effective. They are alternatives or supplements to the "mid-term and a final" model.

This IDEA paper from the Kansas State IDEA Center Resources provides guidelines for creating effective multiple choice tests.

This IDEA paper from the Kansas State IDEA Center Resources provides many strategies for improving essay tests.

This one-page tip sheet guides instructors through evidence-based components of an effective lesson plan.

This file is used by scanning operations to match questions on different test forms.

This sample score report is generated by our paper exam scanning system. The score report is an important tool that will help you evaluate the effectiveness of a test and of the individual questions that comprise it. The evaluation process, called item analysis, can improve future test and item construction. The analysis provides valuable information that helps instructors determine which are the “best” test questions to secure and continue to use on future course assessments; which items need review and potential revision before a next administration, and which are the poorest items which should be eliminated from scoring on the current administration.

We use this handout in our inclusive teaching workshop. It is adapted from “Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom” by Lee Warren at Harvard's Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. It includes suggestions about how to manage difficult conversations by planning before the course as well ideas for what to do during the course ("in the moment").

These PowerPoint slides accompanied a presentation by Linda Suskie delivered via Zoom on Tuesday, Apr. 25, 2017. Multiple-choice tests can have a place in many courses. If they’re well designed, they can yield useful information on student achievement of many important course objectives, including some thinking skills. An item analysis of the results can shed light on how well the questions are working as well as what students have learned. Viewers will be able to use principles of good question construction to develop tests, develop test questions that assess thinking skills as well as conceptual understanding, and use item analysis to understand and improve both test questions and student learning. Be sure to open the handouts file listed below as you view the presentation!

These handouts (minus quizzes for test security) accompanied a presentation by Linda Suskie delivered via Zoom on Tuesday, Apr. 25, 2017. Multiple-choice tests can have a place in many courses. If they’re well designed, they can yield useful information on student achievement of many important course objectives, including some thinking skills. An item analysis of the results can shed light on how well the questions are working as well as what students have learned. Viewers will be able to use principles of good question construction to develop tests, develop test questions that assess thinking skills as well as conceptual understanding, and use item analysis to understand and improve both test questions and student learning.

Student ratings are not the only option to provide evidence in the evaluation of teaching. There is a broad range of alternatives to consider beyond student ratings in the delicate decision-making processes to improve teaching and determine the promotion and tenure of faculty. Yet, despite the constant barrage of attacks on the integrity, reliability, and validity of student ratings, their use in higher education is at an all-time high.
So what do student ratings actually contribute to decisions about teaching and faculty? Should they be abandoned? Should you focus on the other options? This article examines student ratings and 14 alternatives to guide your plans to evaluate teaching in your department.

Recommendations for contingency planning and building flexibility into courses to lessen the impact of unplanned absences, including your own.

The purpose of this article is to provide a process for centers for teaching and learning to demonstrate their success and their value to constituents. Faculty developers have long requested an approach that would guide relevant and meaningful data collection. Nearly every CTL must develop a strategic plan, but too often they sit on a shelf gathering dust. The purpose of a strategic plan is to guide decision-making about how the unit spends its resources in service of its purpose (mission).
Linse, A. R. & Hood, L. N. (in press). Building a strategic plan that guides assessment: A case study from a teaching and learning center. Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning.

Considerations for using AI (artificial intelligence) tools in our teaching: when planning a course, when planning an assignment, when considering implications for equity, accessibility and academic integrity.

The Student Success-Oriented Action Plan is a six-page guide to methods and techniques to increase inclusion and equity through course design and delivery.

Information for instructors who want to learn more about how to plan for instruction before and after a presidential election.

A brief overview of dos and don’ts to assist your planning for class sessions prior to and after a presidential election.

The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment: Background for the Community. As a land-grant institution, Penn State takes seriously its role in promoting and supporting free speech under the law. Freedom of expression is a bedrock principle of our University and is essential to our core educational mission. Free speech is foundational to a democratic society, even when it tests the limits of our tolerance.

Large classes are among the most important because many students enrolled are new to the college experience. The big challenges of teaching large classes include finding ways to engage students, providing timely feedback, and managing logistics. When faced with these challenges, many instructors revert to lectures and multiple-choice tests. There are alternatives. This special report describes some alternative teaching and course management techniques to get students actively involved without an inordinate amount of work on the instructor’s part. From the Teaching Professor, Magna.

Abstract: Writing multiple-choice test items to measure student learning in higher education is a challenge. Based on extensive scholarly research and experience, the author describes various item formats, offers guidelines for creating these items, and provides many examples of both good and bad test items. He also suggests some shortcuts for developing test items. All of this advice is based on extensive scholarly research and experience. Creating valid multiple-choice items is a difficult task, but it contributes greatly to the teaching and learning process for undergraduate, graduate, and professional-school courses.

Author: Thomas M. Haladyna, Arizona State University

Keywords: Multiple-choice items, selected response, test-item formats, examinations

Heavily abridged version of Weinstein, Y., Madan, C. R., & Smith, M. A. (in press). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, prepared for and presented at "Reframing Testing as a Learning Experience: Three Strategies for Use in the Classroom and at Home" on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017.

Six key learning strategies from research in cognitive psychology can be applied to education: spaced practice, interleaving, elaborative interrogation, concrete examples, dual coding, and retrieval practice. However, a recent report (Pomerance, Greenberg, & Walsh, 2016) found that few teacher-training textbooks cover these principles; current study-skills courses also lack coverage of these important learning strategies. Students are therefore missing out on mastering techniques they could use on their own to learn effectively. This handout contains the six key learning strategies to address those concerns.

This flyer lists a variety of services provided by our consultants divided into 5 broad categories: Course Design & Planning, Teaching Strategies, Testing & Grading, Reearch on Teaching & Learning, and Course Evaluation.

In this rationale, Natalie Parker, Director of CETL and Distance Education, Texas Wesleyan University, advocates for replacing high stakes exams with multiple-attempt, low-stakes quizzes. The “testing effect”, in which students recall more information about a topic after testing than after re-reading the material, was first reported by Abbott in 1909. Subsequent studies have confirmed that repeated testing is an effective way for students to recall material.

Item Analysis (a.k.a. Test Question Analysis) is an empowering process that enables you to improve mutiple-choice test score validity and reliability by analyzing item performance over time and making necessary adjustments. Knowledge of score reliability, item difficulty, item discrimination, and crafting effective distractors can help you make decisions about whether to retain items for future administrations, revise them, or eliminate them from the test item pool. Item analysis can also help you to determine whether a particular portion of course content should be revised or enhanced.

This article, from Stanford's teaching and learning center, addresses strategies for improving assessment and grading practices in the classroom.

This document provides an example of a test blueprint, which can be used to help guide test development and ensure that the test questions appropriately reflect the learning objectives of the unit that the test is designed to assess. It can also help students when they study for the test.

This file contains a list of "item-writing rules," which will help you to write multiple choice questions in a way that will improve the ability of the test to focus on the content and prevent students from guessing the correct answer without knowing the material. The rules were developed by experts in the field of psychometrics, like the people who write questions for SATs or GREs.

This is a worksheet that includes the reasons why students might be misbehaving in large classes and strategies for addressing the incivility.

This article "The Agony and the Equity," produced by the Center for Teaching at Stanford University in 1992, addresses issues associated with fair testing and grading.

This document is the master Learning Outcomes Assessment plan for the College of Information Science and Technology.

A handout that provides information and exercises on how to plan an effective class session.

In-depth discussion of planning and writing a case study. Key steps discussed include identifying the reason for using a case study; drafting the case; and piloting and revising it.

IST's 2010 master assessment plan is a great model for similar programs trying to map their objectives, courses, and assessments.

Form for weighting items for exams with items that have different weights. Used for scanning multiple choice tests that use bubble sheets.

Case study: A teaching assistant discovers that many of the class activities she planned will be physically impossible for one of her students.

This FAQ sheet provides a number of strategies related to class and course planning and lecturing in large classes.

This is a true and false quiz to test assumptions about student ratings.

This document is an example of a test blueprint (written for a research methods course), which can be created to help you match your test questions with your learning objectives *and* to help your students study for a test.

This activity involves students pairing up to answer questions about course content and can be used for review of material before a test, for example, or for practice.