Writing assessment questions for online delivery: Principles and guidelines

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Section 1: Overall issues in computer assessment delivery
3. Section 2: Choosing an appropriate question style
4. Section 3: Questions at different learning levels
5. Section 4: Writing effective objective questions
   1. Principles for writing good questions
   2. Suggestions for writing good distracters
   3. Matching questions
   4. Suggestions for writing true/false questions
6. Section 5: Developing online assessments and converting from traditional formats
7. Summary

Suggestions for writing true/false questions

• Include only one main idea in each item.
• As in multiple choice questions generally, use negatives sparingly.
• Try using in combination with other material, such as graphs, maps, written material. This combination allows for the testing of more advanced learning outcomes. (Gronlund 1988)
• Use statements which are unequivocally true or false.
• Avoid lifting statements directly from assigned reading, lecture notes or other course materials so that recall alone will not permit a correct answer.
• Generally avoid the use of words which would signal the correct response to the test-wise student. Absolutes such as 'none', 'never', 'always', 'all', 'impossible' tend to be false, while qualifiers such as 'usually', 'generally', 'sometimes', 'often' are likely to be true.