By Agbaxode Emmanuel
Ho, Aug. 4, GNA – Lectures of the Ho Technical University (HTU) are undergoing a training programme to enhance construction of test items for more quality assurance in assessing students.
The training, targeted at ensuring that lecturers construct test items in a sequence that would enhance candidates’ understanding of questions, highlighted some essential points such as the principles for constructing Test items, features of Test Construction, Strategies for constructing Test Items, as well as the various types of Tests.
Dr Edward K. Ayimey, the Director of Planning and Quality Assurance Directorate of the University, in his welcome address, reiterated the need for quality assurance processes with particular reference to assessing students through acceptable construction of test items.
Professor Christopher Mensah, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University, reminded the lecturers about the importance of continuous professional development.
Reverend Dr Ashiboe-Mensah, a Quality Assurance Officer at HTU and Director of Examination Ethics at Marshals International, led participants through a series of Test Items presentations
He told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview that the relevance of this workshop was also meant to enable lecturers to make maximum use of the Bloom’s Taxonomy’s action verbs that remained appropriate for each level of the academic ladder.
He touched on the three domains of BLoom’s Taxonomy Educational objectives which emphasised Cognitive Learning, knowledge, and memory, thinking critically, reasoning processes.
The rest were Affective, (The Heart), emotions and attitude; Psychomotor (The Hand) and skills acquisition.
On the Principles of Constructing Test Items, Dr Ashiboe-Mensah urged participants to avoid excessive use of verbs and complex sentences.
He said: “The task to be performed and the type of answers required should be clearly defined. Include questions of varying difficulty where students are to answer all items, questions must have equal difficulty where choices are to be made and write each item so that it does not give a clue in responding to other items.
“More importantly, it is about setting test items that bring out creativity and innovation from the candidates.”
GNA