toolbox
Considerations when assembling a written test
Let us say you have your questions ready for a written test. how do you know how many questions you can use for your test? Of course this will depend on the time available for the test taking. But it will also depends on the kind of questions you use, like open or closed questions or a combination of both. Open questions in general will require more responding time than closed ones.
When students are under time pressure, they may make mistakes that have nothing to do with the extent of their learning. Thus, unless your goal is to assess how well students perform under time pressure, it is important to design tests that can be reasonably completed in the time allotted. As a rule of thumb: one way to determine how long a test will take students to complete, is to take it yourself and allow students triple the time it took you. But you may also ask a colleague (peer review is always good practice!) or student assistant.
Below you will find in indication of the time questions may take.
To make the test reliable, you use a certain amount of questions. For open questions this is a bit more difficult to indicate, it depends most of all on the type of open questions, time available and making sure the questions cover the learning objectives. For closed questions there are standard indications:
All these guidelines are just 'rule of thumbs'. By conducting a test analysis afterwards you can check whether the length of the test was too long (the last questions are not answered or less well for instance). Also the student evaluation or complaints during test taking might give an indication.
To read some more about the length of MC tests, including references, see for instances:
- How many questions to include in a multiple-choice test? - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (vu.nl)
- Combining open and closed questions - how many of each (only in Dutch): Gesloten en Open vragen combineren in een toets – Draaijer on Assessment and Testing (wordpress.com)
- Some reasons for 40 questions in a MC test Rule of thumb: 40 questions in a 4-choice multiple-choice test. Why? – Draaijer on Assessment and Testing (wordpress.com)
- Rule of thumb: 40 questions in a 4-choice multiple-choice test – a short follow-up… – Draaijer on Assessment and Testing (wordpress.com)