Writing assessment questions for a course can be more difficult than it sounds. So here are three of our top tips for writing good assessment questions.
- They must be questions about content that is contained in the course. It is not fair to include questions on other topics, no matter how relevant you think they are. Just because the answer seems obvious to you, does not mean that it will be to others. Keep on topic.
- You are not trying to trick the learner. Tricky questions, such as an answer that deliberately looks correct but is not, are not effective. You can have answers that are similar, but not tricky or misleading.
- Only assess content that the learner should remember. For example, if there is a table of figures that they can access on the job, there is no need to assess them on what figure is in position 12 on the table.
Assessments should check that the learner has understood the content of the course enough to do their job. If you stick to that principle when writing assessment questions, you should write fair, effective assessment questions.