MATCHING, SORTING, AND SEQUENCING

Matching, sorting, and sequencing are worth considering together, because they share the same advantages and disadvantages. Essentially, they are all good item types when used appropriately, but they aren't appropriate in every context.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

By some measures, multiple choice questions are the most popular question type in assessment.They show up everywhere, across disciplines, across ages, in traditional education, in the business world, in certification exams and seemingly everywhere you look. Multiple choice questions aren’t popular with everyone, though. Students typically have a less positive view of them, and they’re subject to criticism from educators, instructional designers and other avenues.

WRITING TASKS

The case for including writing tasks in an assessment strategy has some very powerful arguments on its side. For starters, writing is itself a fundamental skill that is important in a wide variety of settings. Written communication is required for virtually every role in the modern economy, and so it makes sense to want to know whether students, colleagues, and job applicants can write effectively.

MULTIPLE ANSWER (SELECT ALL THAT APPLY) QUESTIONS

Multiple answer (select all that apply) questions share many of the advantages and disadvantages of multiple choice questions, their close cousin. However, instead of asking the learner to select exactly one choice, multiple answer questions ask you to choose all the options that fit the description in the question stem. For example, you could be given a list of numbers and be asked to click on those that are prime, or you could be given a list of animals and be asked to select all of the insects, and so on.

ASSESSMENT DESIGN AT SECOND AVENUE LEARNING

Assessment is measurement, and there are many things worth measuring in learning environments. We want to know what learners know and what they can do so that we can tell whether learning objectives have been achieved and what role learning experiences played in helping people accomplish those objectives.