Tips for Improving Testing and Grading

"The Ory/Ryan volume offers practical advice for developing, using, and grading classroom examinations. The book encourages faculty to understand the potential benefits they can reap from appropriate and careful testing and grading practices, and the role of testing in promoting quality teaching. . . . it is very helpful and well structured for those faculty who rely on traditional forms of assessment. This book will help such faculty improve their test development and assessment skills as well as encouraging them to reflect on their own testing and grading practices."

--Patricia H. Wheeler in Evaluation Practice

"This [book] provides a thorough discussion of general testing and grading issues. . . . The topics one would expect to be covered are all addressed in a thorough and step-by-step manner. I particularly like the activities accompanying each chapter. They are brief, doable, and inviting. . . . It would be particularly helpful for new faculty, but experienced faculty might also benefit from the discussion of how to evaluate past exams and the pros and cons of various grading policies."

--Shirley Ronkowski, Office of Instructional Consultation,

University of California, Santa Barbara

Do you enjoy teaching students about your field, but loathe the testing and grading process? Do you find yourself using the same kinds of tests that you had as a student? Aimed at helping faculty develop more effective assessment strategies, Ory and Ryan′s book provides practical suggestions for developing, using, and grading classroom exams. Through the use of detailed examples, check lists, exercises, and lucid explanations, this book will help you determine what content to include on an exam, assess difficulty level of items, write different kinds of test items (multiple-choice, matching, true-false, essay, and short answer), prepare a professional-looking exam, deal with cheating, score different test items, determine if various content areas were adequately taught, help students review for an exam, select a grading method, and develop your own grading strategy. If you want your exams and grades to be an accurate reflection of the material your students have mastered, then this book is the resource for you.

Katherine Ryan (B.S., Psychology, M.Ed., Special Education, Ph.D., Educational Psychology, University of Illinois - Urbana) is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at UIUC. Her areas of specialization include Educational Measurement, Program Evaluation, and Applied Statistics, and she is currently Head of Measurement and Evaluation in the College of Education. Her research interests include assessment validation issues, particularly the evaluation of validity evidence based on response processes and consequences of assessments. Other interests include differential item/test functioning, and issues in program evaluation theory and practice. She teaches Descriptive and Inferential Statistics, Classroom Assessment, Introduction to Measurement, Introduction to Program Evaluation Theory, and Introduction to Evaluation Methods. She has edited two volumes of New Directions in Evaluation for the American Evaluation Association (AEA), one on evaluation as a democratic process, and the other on teaching evaluation in higher education.