Catherine Scott, Asst Dir for Faculty Dev – Testing, Assessment & Evaluation

What do you remember about taking exams? The stress? The anxiety? Trying to decipher which concepts to memorize? Which information the instructor stressed as important? Or maybe you completely blanked out like I did more times than I can count! As a professional, I can remember taking hundreds of exams, but unfortunately, I can not remember all the information I crammed into my brain to pass them. So, what was the objective of these tests? To make me stressed or help me learn? In college, students tend to approach multiple choice exams the same way they did in high school, utilizing the test taking strategies that help to eliminate the wrong answers, instead of knowing the correct one.  

Quick story. I have two sons, both bright in various areas. My oldest, teachers claimed, had things come to him easily. However, he always stressed taking tests! He would literally get sick and then perform poorly. If you asked him later about the same material, he knew it all. He was even given resources that later were taken away because he proved he did not really need them. My other son struggled in class but aced the tests. I knew something was going on but found it difficult to get him the resources he needed because he always did so well on the tests. He was later diagnosed with an extreme case of dyslexia and what we found out was he is just a great test taker. In fact, many times he was just utilizing the process of elimination and then guessing. I often use my children as a real-life example to remember when I’m assisting an instructor with H.O.T. exams.  

Let’s make those exams H.O.T. 

What does H.O.T even mean? Higher Order Thinking. A concept born out of the research of Benjamin Bloom, a Harvard professor who studied three domains: the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Higher order thinking resides in the cognitive domain and can be useful to classify different hierarchical levels of understanding that students can achieve in a course. 

Before incorporating Bloom’s into designing your exams, here are some strategies you can take to strengthen your questions. Each question has a stem, which presents the problem; a correct option, which is the right answer; and the distractors, which are the incorrect options used to distract you from the right answer. 

Tips for strengthening your stem

1. Articulate stems around your course learning objectives.
2. Start with lower-level items first to help build confidence.
3. Test what you really want individuals to learn. 
4. Ensure that the directions in the stem are very clear; sometimes students do not understand what is being asked. 
5. Include the central idea in the stem instead of the choices.
6. Avoid window dressing (excessive verbiage); include only what is necessary to the question. 
7. Word the stem positively, avoid negatives such as NOT or EXCEPT. If negative words are used, use the word cautiously and always ensure that the word appears CAPITALIZED and boldface. 
8. Check borrowed items carefully; sometimes we find questions used by others but are not aligned with our own course objectives. 
9. Get feedback on items; ask others to take the exam and provide feedback. 
10. Compose test items over time; make sure you review each semester to ensure the content still applies. 

Tips for strengthening your correction option and your distractors 

1. Develop as many effective choices as you can, but research suggests three distractors are adequate.
2. Make sure that only one of these choices is the right answer.
3. Utilize or perform an item analysis to determine the difficulty index. 
4. Vary the location of the right answer according to the number of choices.
5. Keep choices homogeneous in content and grammatical structure; students looking to guess will try to determine which responses visually look different. 
6. Incorporate typical errors regarding the content; which mistakes have students made in the past?
7. Make them plausible; if not, the answer may seem obvious.
8. Use humor cautiously, especially if you do not use humor in your lectures. 
9. “None-of-the-above” should be used carefully.
10. Avoid giving clues to the right answer.

After you have incorporated the above suggestions, you’re ready to utilize Bloom’s taxonomy to ensure you are measuring higher learning. Use the chart below to help design some of your exam questions. First, which level of Bloom’s will you be measuring?  This will help you determine how students will conceptualize the material, which will help you decide how to ask the questions. 

If you have questions or would like to discuss further, please contact us.