Follow these five steps to efficiently create an effective exam.
1) Identify learning outcome(s): The program-level learning outcome(s) you want to assess will serve as the basis of your exam items.
2) Outline components of outcome(s): Consider the knowledge and skills you would want your students to demonstrate in order to show that they’ve achieved the outcome.
3) For each outcome component, determine the desired level of learning:
- The action word in your learning outcome is a good indicator of the level of learning you expect students to demonstrate.
- Knowing the level of learning will help you to select the most appropriate types of exam items; for example, if you expect students to recognize important definitions or dates, you might decide to use a multiple choice item, but if you need students to explain a complex issue, you might decide to use a short-answer question. For more information about item types, see Types of Exam Items.
4) Create at least one exam item for each outcome component:
- For program assessment, working with other program faculty to develop items helps ensure that the exam reflects program-wide priorities and expertise.
- Consider asking students to contribute items - this provides insight into what your students think they are learning and engages them in reflective study, in addition to helping with the exam writing process.
- Bringing multiple perspectives to the development of your exam will help ensure that items make sense, are error-free, and are designed to measure essential learning.
5) Decide on an appropriate length and prioritize your items: Ideally you would include as many items as you need to test the concepts associated with the outcome(s), but given real-world time limitations, consider the following rules of thumb for deciding how many items to include in your exam:
- Students will need about three times as long as the professor would need to take the exam.
- Allow about a minute for each selected response item and five to ten minutes for students to review answers across the entire exam; the time allowed for constructed response items will vary depending on the nature of the knowledge being tested.