Testing Constraints

Testing constraints are conditions that occur during the test. Kubiszyn and Borich list typical test constraints to include time, reference material available, people, equipment, prior knowledge, and scoring criteria (2010).

For both the multiple choice/short answer and essay assessments, there will be a time constraint placed on the exams. For the essay portion, students will be allotted forty minutes for completion, which should be ample time. For the multiple choice/short answer assessment, students will be allotted twenty minutes, since the test is being read to students. For students that require extended time, it will be granted according to their IEP. 

Students will not be allowed to utilize the textbook to search for answers because this would defer from testing their ability to describe characters when they would most likely copy exact words from the text. Pictures cues are available for the multiple choice series, which provides enough information for students to answer the questions.

 For the essay, students already have an understanding of what a paragraph entails, including the appropriate sentence structure, capitalization and punctuation, which is why organization of the paragraph is considered in scoring. However, this test is not measuring spelling accuracy; therefore spelling errors will not have an effect on scoring on either portion of the exam.

Students may ask questions during tests, but clues to correct answers cannot be provided to students. If a student needs further explanation of the task, this is acceptable.

Students are informed of the scoring criteria, and prior to the essay assessment a review of the story and the rules of writing are discussed. Prior to the multiple choice format, students will review the components that are being assessed.

 

References:

Kubiszyn, T., Borich, G. (2010). Educational testing & measurement (9^th ed). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 

Rubric for Scoring the Essay

It is difficult to objectively score an essay because the answers are not as obvious as those of objective tests. There is no obvious right or wrong answers that when evaluating essays. For this reason, it is important to have a grading rubric to use as a guide for evaluating an essay. Developing a scoring rubric helps eliminate the potential of judgments and grading errors, especially after reviewing numerous essays which can change opinions of the quality of essays.  A rubric also helps ensure the reliability of the scoring, as it provides a basis for scoring that can be used by different teachers scoring the exam.  An example of a rubric for the essay assessment previously posted is below:

Category	5	4	3	2	1
Recall	Student recalls two characters from the story with significant detail	Student recalls two characters from the story with little detail	Student recalls two characters from the story with no detail	Student recalls only one character from the story with little detail	Student provides little information about any characters from the story
Describing Character Traits	Student accurately describes character traits of two characters with evidence from the story	Student accurately describes character traits, but lacks evidence from the story	Student describes character traits, but descriptions are inaccurate	Students describes character traits for one character	Student provides little information about character traits
Analysis	Student provides adequate and logical comparisons among characters, with evidence to support their analysis	Student provides adequate and logical comparisons among characters, but fails to provide supporting evidence	Student provides comparisons among characters, with no supporting evidence and/or logical comparison	Student provides evidence of character traits but fails to provide comparison with another character	Student does not provide evidence of comparisons among characters
Amount of Details - Similarities	Student accurately provides at least three similarities among two characters	Student accurately provides at least two similarities among characters	Student accurately provides one similarity among characters	Student provides similarities among characters that are inaccurate	Student does not provide any information about similarities of characters
Amount of Details – Differences	Student accurately provides at least three differences among two characters	Student accurately provides at least two differences among characters	Student accurately provides one difference among characters	Student provides differences among character that are inaccurate	Student does not provide any information about character differences
Organization	Student completes the writing of at least two short paragraphs, written in a logical manner	Student completes the writing of two short paragraphs, but lacks organization of thought	Student  completes one paragraph with logical thought	Student provides a few short sentences.	Student provides little to no writing