This article by Dr. Richard Sudweeks, BYU, is used with permission.

The tasks of assessing student learning and assigning grades should be (but are not always) interconnected and aligned. What the students do within the assessment should produce data that can be measured so that reasonable judgments can be made about the student’s achievement of the outcome. The assigning of grades should reflect the student’s achievement.

• See CTL’s “Professor Dancelot and the Perils of a Misaligned Course” on YouTube. 

How do we get our assessment questions to align with our objectives?

One way is to use a Table of Specifications (also called a Test Blueprint). You can use a Table of Specifications that incorporates Bloom's Revised Taxonomy of higher-level thinking. It looks something like this:

You fill in your objectives on the left and then complete the table with the question numbers from your assessment that fulfill those objectives. By specifying the number of test items you want for each cell, you can determine how much emphasis to give each task and each content area. For example:

You match the questions to the levels of Bloom's taxonomy by examining the verbs used in the questions. For example, questions with verbs like define or recognize would definitely be "Remember" questions, whereas questions with verbs like organize or determine why would be "Analyze" questions (see Blooms’s Revised Taxonomy.)

For a copy of the Table of Specifications to download and use, click here.

What are the benefits of using a table of specifications in planning tests?
 

1. You can be sure that the questions on your test matched the content taught in class, or in other words, you can better ensure content validity.
2. You can check to make sure that your questions cover higher level objectives, or more than factual recall.
3. You can make sure that the most important objectives are appropriately emphasized by assigning a suitable number of items or giving those items the proper weight in points.
4. You can verify that the test contains a representative sample, or a sample that is as representative as possible of the corresponding content and emphasis given in class for the various areas you are testing.

For help in planning, evaluating, or modifying assessments, contact Teaching & Learning Consultant Bryan Bradley at 801-422-8194 or bryan_bradley@byu.edu.

Sources

“How to Prepare Better Tests: Guidelines for University Faculty.” Beverly B. Zimmerman, Richard R. Sudweeks, Monte F. Shelley, and Bud Wood. Copyright 1990.