TESTs OF

ACHIEVEMENT
Objectives of this seminar, today we will discuss
about:
• Achievement test
• Definition of Achievement test
• Purposes of Achievement test
• Characteristics of Achievement test
• Functions of Achievement test
• Construction of Achievement test
• Steps to construct an Achievement test
Continued….

• Types of questions in an achievement test

• Administration of an achievement test
• Scoring and recording of test results
• Grading of test
• Advantages of achievement test.
 INTRODUCTION

Teachers teach and help the learners

to learn. The learning that takes
place is assessed or evaluated not
only for the learner's benefit but
also for the teacher to evaluate his
own work
 ACHIEVEMENT TEST

• Achievement is the accomplishment or proficiency of

performance in a given skill or body of knowledge.

• An achievement test is an examination to reveal the

relative standing of an individual in the group with
respect to achievement.

• An achievement test is a test of developed skill or

knowledge.
• Achievement tests are often contrasted with tests
that measure aptitude, a more general and stable
cognitive trait.

• Achievement test is an important tool in school and

college evaluation and has a great significance in
measuring instructional progress and progress of
the students in the subject area
DEFINITIONS

According to NM Downie –
"Any test that measures the attainments or
accomplishments of an Individual after a
period of training or learning."
According to Thorndike and Hagen –
"The type of ability test that describes what
a person has learned to do."

According to Groulund -
"A systematic procedure for determining
the amount a student has learned through
instruction."
PURPOSE OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

 To monitor students learning and to provide

ongoing feedback to both students and teachers
during the teaching-leaning process.

 To identify the students learning difficulties-

whether persistent or recurring.
 To measure whether students possess the pre-requisite
skills needed to succeed in any unit or whether the
students have achieved the objective of the planned
instruction.

 To assigns grades to the students.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD ACHIEVEMENT TEST

• It can be tried out and selected on the basis of

its difficulty level and discriminating power.

• It should be directly related to educational

objectives.

• It should possess description of measure

behaviour in realistic and practical terms.
• It contains a sufficient number of test items for each
measured behaviour; concerned with important and
useful matter; comprehensive brief, precise and clear.

• It should be divided into different knowledge and skills

according to behaviours to be measured.

• Standardized the Items and made Instruction clear so

that different users can utilize it.
• Rules, norms have to be developed so that various age groups
can use at various levels.

• It provides equivalent and comparable forms of the test.

• A test manual has to be prepared, which can be act as a guide

for administering and scoring.
FUNCTIONS OF ACHIEVEMENT TEST

• It provides basis for promotion to the next

grade.

• To find out where each student stands in

various academic areas.

• It helps determination about the placement

of the student in a particular section.
• To motivate the students before a new
assignment has taken.

• To know how effectively the student is

performing in the theory as well as the clinical
areas.

• To expose pupils’ difficulties which the teacher

can help them to solve
CONSTRUCTION OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

If a test has to be really made valid,

reliable and practical, then it will have to
be suitably planned. For it, qualitative
improvement in the test will have to be
affected
For this, the following precautions for test construction
should be kept in view: -

• The principles available tests will have to be

kept in view so that a test can be planned.
• The purpose and objectives of test must be
defined.
• It should be decided when the test has to be
conducted in the context of time and
frequency.
• It should be determined how many questions
have to be included in the test.
• It should be determined what types of questions have
to be used in the test.

• Be sure that all important content areas are covered.

• Those topics should be determined from which

questions have to be constructed. This decision is
taken keeping in view the teaching objectives.

• The level of difficulty of questions should be

decided at the beginning of the test.
• It should be determined if any correction has
to be carried out for guessing.

• Use simple and clear language

• The format and type of printing should be

decided in advance.

• It should be determined what should be the

passing score.
• In order to control the personal bias of the
examiner there should be a provision for
central evaluation. The same examiner
should check a particular question.

• Provide clear, concise and complete

directions to the pupils.
• Allot time appropriately.

• Maintain confidentiality in test construction.

• A rulebook should be prepared before the

evaluation of the scripts.
STEPS OF ACHIEVEMENT
TEST CONSTRUCTION
• First Step: Instructional Objective

• Second Step: Design

• Third Step: Preparation of Blueprint

• Forth Step: Writing of the Questions

• Fifth step: Marking Scheme

• Sixth Step: Question-wise Analysis or Item Analysis

• Seventh Step: Preparation of Final Test

Lets review what we have discussed so far…..
• Achievement test

• Definition of achievement test

• Purposes

• Characteristics

• Functions

• Precautions while constructing achievement test

• Steps of constructing an achievement test

TYPES OF QUESTIONS IN
ACHIEVEMENT TEST
There are mainly three kinds of questions –

1.Essay type
2.Short answer type
3.Objective type
Short answer type: - They can be grouped into
two broad categories:
i. Extended Answer Type
ii. Insert and Completion Type
Objective type – It can further divided into
four types
a.Simple Recall
b.Multiple Choices
c.True-False
d.Matching Block
ADMINISTRATION OF AN ACHIEVEMENT TEST

Test should be administered in a

congenial environment strictly as per
instructions planned assure uniformity of
conclusions to all the people tested.
The administration of the achievement test
includes –

Time Schedule - Be sure we plan our time

schedule carefully, ensuring teacher and pupil
readiness. Much preparation may be done a
day before. It will be wise to schedule enough
time for briefing the invigilators.
The Room -
• It is important for any examination to provide a quiet,
comfortable atmosphere, in which the students are
encouraged to do their best.
• Hang signs on the door, saying
"EXAMINATION IN PROGRESS: DO NOT DISTURB"
Desk
The students will be writing on a single -
thickness answer sheet so the writing
surfaces are at least 30 x 38 cm, and as
smooth as possible.
Equipment
The necessary equipment taken by the examiner
in the examination hall are – chalk, Board,
poster, notice board pencil etc. The examiner
should have a check-list of required equipment,
to ensure what you will have to take with in the
examination hall.
Invigilators

• For examination, we will probably need the

help of one or more invigilators. The
invigilator should have willing to give their
full attention to the task.

• Invigilators should observe closely, circulating

constantly, checking that the students are
answering in the right place, not copying etc.
SCORING AND RECORDING
OF TEST RESULTS

The principal of valuation

should be followed in scoring
the test. It enhances the
objectivity and reliability of the
test.
Order of Scoring

• For objective tests separate answer sheets are

provided, the scorer may score a given page in
all booklets first, then the next page, and so on,
rather than scoring all of one booklet before
going on to the next.

• For essay tests may be desirable to have one

person score all answers to the first question,
then to the second, and so on.
Scoring errors

 "Constant" errors can be due to failure to understand

scoring directions, with resultant scores which are
consistently too low or too high.

 "Variable" errors can be due to carelessness in

marking, adding, computing, or transcribing scores.
These errors warrant

The careful training and instruction of scorers

The rescoring of at least a sample of any group of

test booklets or answer sheets.
Rescoring

 With a large number of booklets to be scored and sufficient

help available, it is always worthwhile to restore them so as
to eliminate errors that otherwise are almost inevitable in a
clerical task like this.

 If complete rescoring is not feasible every fifth or tenth

booklet should be rescored to get a rough idea of the
frequency and magnitude of scoring errors.

 Rescoring a sample sometimes uncovers such an inaccuracy

as to make it desirable to restore the remainder.
Keeping Records

As soon as possible after the tests have been

administered, the answer sheet should be checked
and scored, and the scores should be recorded on the
permanent records of the school. Usually, schools
have some type of permanent record for each pupil
which provides space for recording standardized test
results.
The records must be indicated: test title, form of the
test, date when the test was given, the raw score or
standard score, and percentile rank under properly
identified captions. When percentile ranks are
reported, the group on which the norms were based
should be identified.
 GRADES
Grading is the system of classifying students into a few
ability groups or categories according to their level of
achievement in an examination. The achievement is
defined in the form of numerical or letter grades, each of
which denotes a certain level of performance, generally
not in absolute terms but in relation to the performance
of the whole group
There are two approaches to formation of groups that
define the grades -
1. On the basis of absolute marks and
2. On the basis of relative marks or rank order of marks
Absolute Grading
This approach involves direct conversion of
marks into grades. Whatever be the distribution
of marks in a subject, the marks between two
fixed points on 0-100 scale would correspond to
a given grade.
Examples - the categorization of students
into 5 groups - Distinction, 1st, 2nd, 3td
Division and fail categories on the basis
of marks as follows:

a. 75 or above Distinction
b. 60 – 74 1st Division
c. 45 – 59 2nd Division
d. 33 -44 3rd Division
e. Below 33 Fail
Comparative Grading
This involves conversion of marks into grades
on the basis of rank order or percentiles. In this
case the distribution of marks is taken into
consideration while determining the range of
marks corresponding to different grades.
For example, the top 5% students may be given grade A;
the next 10% grade B and so on. Here the actual cut-off
score for grade A in one subject may be quite different
from that of another subject. In this case the grade that a
student gets depends on his /her relative performance,
that is, on what his/her marks are in relation to the marks
of others.
The following are the main advantages of such grading:

• With the same uniform pattern being adopted for all

subjects, grading would provide Achievement Tests better
comparability of the results of different years in the same
subject.
• Grading is essentially based on rank ordering of
students. Studies have shown that agreement among
examiners on ranks to be awarded to examinees is
much more in this than on absolute marks.

• There is greater comparability among subjects when

grades are used. When there is a choice of subjects,
students need not avoid the subjects which are
considered low scoring.
• Grades in different subjects in an examination
provide a meaningful profile of the achievement of
a student. Unlike marks, one can easily find out in
which subjects the performance is outstanding,
good, fair or poor.
 SUMMARY

We have discussed achievement test, it’s definition,

purposes, characteristics, functions, construction,
steps, types of questions in an achievement test,
administration of an achievement test, scoring and
recording of test results, grading, advantages of
achievement test.
 CONCLUSION

Achievement test is the test which measures the

amount of learning of student after completing a
particular learning program. It helps to evaluate
how effectively the student is performing in the
theory as well as the clinical areas and according to
his performance a particular score or grading is
assigned to the student