Creating a Good Quiz.

  Have you ever thought seriously about how to create a proper quiz?  I haven't up to know because I use a quiz just to check out if they can do the problems but it turns out there is more to writing a quiz than that. 

I'm sure others out there were taught to either take the all ready created quiz from the textbook or to write their own. 

By good quiz, I mean you are able to analyze the results to provide usable data to help create better lesson plans.

This leads to the question of "How do you write a good quiz?"  The suggestions are more like things to keep in mind and many of them make sense.

1.  Tie each question to a goal or standard.  That way you know if the standard is being met.

2. Ask multiple questions about each topic.

3. If you write multiple choice questions, make sure the wrong answers represent a misunderstanding of the concept.  This allows you to determine how the student processes the information and helps you decide if you need to reteach a concept.

4. Write questions using different levels of Blooms Taxonomy.  Have some that are simple recall while others might be a real life application of the material.

5. Test your questions.  If they are not useful, get rid of them.  You want to create a bank of good questions you can pull from as needed.

6. Keep the questions clear because you are not trying to trick the students.

7. True and False questions are not good to use because students have a 50% chance of getting it right.

8. Rather than grading the quiz, evaluate it to see if the student has mastered the material.

9. Let students know the reason for the quiz.

10. If you use an online quiz program, make sure its one that can provide information on all the results so you can just look at it and know what students need scaffolding on.

11.  If it is a topic you could use a video quiz on, you might want to use it so  you use other types of learning.

Give it some thought when you create your next quiz.  Are you writing one to help students and you discern what they need to work on or do you just quiz to quiz.  Let me know what you think.