Master Class "Writing Good Test Questions: Principles and Common Mistakes"

The seminar took place as a pre-LED Conference event, a highly awaited big-scale event in our SOFL life in December.

Nathan Carr is a professor of TESOL at California State University, Fullerton. He received his PhD in Applied Linguistics at UCLA with a focus on language assessment. Professor Carr’s research interests are eclectic but focus on language assessment, particularly validation, assessment literacy training, computer-based testing, automated scoring, rating scale use and development, and test task characteristics.

For more details about the Conference follow the link.

This seminar reviewed several commonly accepted rules for writing good items (i.e., test questions), focusing on the work of Haladyna, Downing, and Rodriguez (2002). Mr. Carr outlined a number of errors commonly found in teacher-created test questions, particularly multiple-choice items and illustrated them with an abundance of examples. Nathan shared a wealth of materials for the participants to examine several problematic items and identify why they are problematic.

The seminar was especially productive for students who actively took part in the discussion and asked questions.

We are looking forward to seeing our students, colleagues and guest of LED Conference at our further pre-Conference events and Colloquium+ meetings.