While assessments are often equated with traditional tests and quizzes (especially the standardized tests developed by testing companies and administered to large populations of students) educators use a diverse array of assessment tools and methods to measure everything from a four-year-old’s readiness for kindergarten to a twelfth-grade student’s comprehension of advanced physics. Just as academic lessons have different functions, assessments are typically designed to measure specific elements of learning—e.g., the level of knowledge a student already has about the concept or skill the teacher is planning to teach or the ability to comprehend and analyze different types of texts and readings. Assessments also are used to identify individual student weaknesses and strengths so that educators can provide specialized academic support, educational programming, and/or social services. In addition, assessments are developed by a wide array of groups and individuals, including teachers, district administrators, universities, private companies, state departments of education, and groups that include a combination of these individuals and institutions. While assessment can take a wide variety of forms in education, the following descriptions provide a representative overview of a few major forms of educational assessment.

To design an assessment, you must first start with the objective. This tutorial will involve creating multiple choice questions related to one objective. There are, of course, numerous ways to assess an objective. This is merely a good place to start.

Step 1: Identify what your objective is covering.

For this example, the objective will be: “The student will identify similes in a text. (DOK 1) (L.9.5).” The verb “identify” means that students should be able to indicate that a certain sentence is a simile. Notice that this is different than creating their own similes or reciting the definition of a simile. The question we write also implies that they know the definition of a simile, which presumably was covered at some point.

Step 2: Decide what elements are necessary to include.

For this example, a text is necessary in order for students to “identify” the simile. In this example, to keep it simple, we will use a well-known children’s song:

1      “Twinkle, twinkle little star,
2      How I wonder what you are
3      Up above the world so high,
4      Like a diamond in the sky.”

Step 3: Add the question wording and choices

Question 1: Which of the following lines of the poem contains a simile?
1      “Twinkle, twinkle little star,
2      How I wonder what you are
3      Up above the world so high,
4      Like a diamond in the sky.”

A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4

Step 4: Recheck the objective

Our objective states that they will identify “similes,” so we will need more than one question. In addition, similes compare two unlike things using “like,” “as,” or “than.” For this particular topic, 3-4 questions would be appropriate. The format of the question could remain the same while the passage/poem used would change.

Other Thoughts

The above example on similes highlights the importance of making sure objectives are specific. If the objective were to be about “figurative language” a teacher would need 10+ questions to cover all the different figurative language types and variations.

The verb used is very important in relation to the assessment. Taking the same objective, but changing the verb has a big impact on what assessment should be used. In this case, changing the verb to “construct” makes the objective as follows: “The student will construct similes. (DOK 2) (L.9.5).” The assessment would have students writing their own similes, and would not lend itself to be measured using a multiple choice test.