Module 2:
Establishing the Learning Targets
Lesson 3: Characteristics of Well-Written
and
Useful Instructional
Objectives
Characteristics of a Well-Written Objective
A well-written objective should meet the following criteria: (1)
describe a learning outcome, (2) be student oriented, (3) be observable (or
describe an observable product).
A well-written objective should describe a learning outcome (e.g.,
to correctly spell the spelling words on page seventeen). It should not
describe a learning activity (e.g., to practice the words on page seventeen by
writing each one ten times). Learning activities are important in planning and
guiding instruction but they are not to be confused with instructional
objectives.
A student-oriented objective focuses on the learner, not on the
teacher. It describes what the learner will be expected to be able to do. It
should not describe a teacher activity (e.g., to go over the words on page
seventeen with the students, explaining their meaning and telling them how the
words are pronounced). It may be helpful to both the teacher and the student to
know what the teacher is going to do but teacher activities are also not to be
confused with instructional objectives.
If an instructional objective is not observable (or does not
describe an observable product), it leads to unclear expectations and it will
be difficult to determine whether or not it had been reached. The key to
writing observable objectives is to use verbs that are observable and lead to a
well defined product of the action implied by that verb. Verbs such as "to
know," "to understand," "to enjoy," "to
appreciate," "to realize," and "to value" are vague
and not observable. Verbs such as "to identify," "to list,"
"to select," "to compute," "to predict," and
"to analyze" are explicit and describe observable actions or actions
that lead to observable products.
There are many skills that cannot be directly observed. The
thinking processes of a student as she tries to solve a math problem cannot be
easily observed. However, one can look at the answers she comes up with and
determine if they are correct. It is also possible to look at the steps a
student takes to arrive at an answer if they are written down (thus displaying
his thinking process). There are many end products that also can be observed
(e.g., an oil painting, a prose paragraph, a 3-dimensional map, or an outline.)
Characteristics of a Useful Objective
To be useful for instruction, an objective must not only be well
written but it also must meet the following criteria: (1) be sequentially
appropriate; (2) be attainable within a reasonable amount of time; (3) be
developmentally appropriate.
For an objective to be sequentially appropriate it must occur in
an appropriate place in the instructional sequence. All prerequisite objectives
must already have been attained. Nothing thwarts the learning process more than
having learners trying to accomplish an objective before they have learned the
necessary prerequisites. This is why continuous assessment of student progress
is so important.
A useful objective is attainable within a reasonable time. If an
instructional objective takes students an inordinately long time to accomplish,
it is either sequentially inappropriate or it is too broad, relying on the
accomplishment of several outcomes or skills rather than a single outcome or skill.
An objective should set expectations for a single learning outcome and not a
cluster of them.
Developmentally appropriate objectives set expectations for
students that are well within their level of intellectual, social, language, or
moral development. Teachers, parents, and others who are working with preschool
or elementary school children should be especially aware of the developmental
stages of the children they are working with. No author or researcher has more
clearly defined the stages of intellectual development than Jean Piaget.
Familiarity with his work as well as with the work of other child development
specialists (e.g., Lev Vygotsky's language development, Lawrence Kohlberg's
moral development and Erik Erikson's social development) should produce better
instructional objectives.
Kinds of Instructional Objectives
Instructional objectives are often classified according to the
kind or level of learning that is required in order to reach them. There are
numerous taxonomies of instructional objectives; the most common taxonomy was
developed by Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues. The first level of the taxonomy
divides objectives into three categories: cognitive, affective, and
psychomotor. Simply put, cognitive objectives focus on the mind; affective
objectives focus on emotions or affect; and psychomotor objectives focus on the
body.
Cognitive objectives call for outcomes of mental activity such as
memorizing, reading, problem solving, analyzing, synthesizing, and drawing
conclusions. Bloom and others further categorize cognitive objectives into
various levels from the simplest cognitive tasks to the most complex cognitive
task. These categories can be helpful when trying to order objectives so they
are sequentially appropriate. This helps to insure that prerequisite outcomes
are accomplished first.
Affective objectives focus on emotions. Whenever a person seeks to
learn to react in an appropriate way emotionally, there is some thinking going
on. What distinguishes affective objectives from cognitive objectives is the
fact that the goal of affective objectives is some kind of affective behavior
or the product of an affect (e.g., an attitude). The goal of cognitive
objectives, on the other hand, is some kind of cognitive response or the
product of a cognitive response (e.g., a problem solved).
Psychomotor objectives focus on the body and the goal of these
objectives is the control or manipulation of the muscular skeletal system or
some part of it (e.g., dancing, writing, tumbling, passing a ball, and
drawing). All skills requiring fine or gross motor coordination fall into the
psychomotor category. To learn a motor skill requires some cognition. However,
the ultimate goal is not the cognitive aspects of the skill such as memorizing
the steps to take. The ultimate goal is the control of muscles or muscle
groups.
Module: 4 Other Assessment Tools and Techniques
Lesson :7
Objective:
1. The students can define the other term of assessment tools and techniques.
2. The students can identify the other tools and techniques for assessing the er classroom performances.
A.) Filling the blanks
A fill-in-the-blank item provides a test taker with identifying characteristics and requires the test taker to recall the correct term. There are two types of fill-in-the-blank tests. The easier version provides a word bank of possible words that will fill in the blanks. For some exams all words in the word bank are exactly once. If a teacher wanted to create a test of medium difficulty, they would provide a test with a word bank, but some words may be used more than once and others not at all. The hardest variety of such a test is a fill-in-the-blank test in which no word bank is provided at all. This generally requires a higher level of understanding and memory than a multiple choice test. Because of this, fill-in-the-blank tests [with no word bank] are often feared by students.
B.) Standardized Test
· Constructed by test specialist working with curriculum experts and teachers.
· It is a test prepared by an expert or specialist. This type of test samples behavior under uniform procedures. Questions are administered to students with the same directions and time limits. Results in this kind of test are scored following a detailed procedure based on its manual and interpreted based on specified norms and standards.
The standardized test is an instrument that contains a set of items that are administered and measured according to uniform scoring standards. The test has been pilot tested and administered to representative individuals to obtain normative data. Most standardized tests are published and distributed by testing companies (such as Educational Testing Service and Psychological Corporation), publishing companies (such as Houghton Mifflin and Macmillan0, which usually publish reading and math test to accompany their textbooks, and universities (such as Iowa University and Stanford University), which have developed and validated specific achievement and IQ tests.
Standardized tests are widely used in schools, and you most certainly have taken a number of them throughout your academic career. Standardizes tests usually have high reliability coefficients and good validity, since they have been tested on representative sample populations. The unreliable or invalid test items have been eliminated through this pilot testing over the years. Normative data are useful in interpreting individual test scores and in ranking individual scores within a comparative population. However, normative data are less useful in special school or class situations in which the students have abilities, aptitudes, needs, or learning problems that are quite different from the normative population. The content of standardized tests does not always coincide with the content in a particular school or classroom- that is, the tests may lack curricular validity for that school or classroom.
C.) Intelligence and Aptitude Test
· Intelligence test
- It is a test that measures the mental ability of an individual.
-Intelligence tests have come under attack in recent years, and most school systems use them only for special testing or placement of students. The two most commonly used intelligence tests are the Stanford-Binet (SB) ant the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). The first is a group intelligence tests, the second is administered on an individual basis.
· Aptitude test
- It is a test designed for the purpose of predicting the livelihood of an individual's success in a learning area or field of endeavor.
- Aptitude test predicts achievement. The most common aptitude tests are briefly discussed below:
1.) Most students who wish to go on to college have to take a number of general aptitude tests to provide information to college admissions officers. You probably took the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) or the American College Testing Program (ACT) exam. Students applying to graduate school may take the Miller Analogies Tests (MAT) or the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). The MAT is general aptitude test in logic and language skills. The GRE is a general aptitude test, but the advanced parts are considered a professional aptitude test.
2.) Special or talent aptitude tests are frequently administered as screening devices for students who wish to enroll in a special school (such as music, art, or science ) or for students who wish to enroll in a special course (such as honors course or a college course with credit) or a special program (such as creative writing or computers.)
D.) Personality Test
· It is a test assessing some aspects of an individual's personality. Some areas tested in this kind of test include the following: emotional and social adjustment; emotional stability; dominance and submission; value orientation; disposition; frustration level; and degree of introversion or extraversion.
· Are generally used for special placement of students with learning problems or adjustment problems. Most students in school are not tested for personality. The most commonly used personality tests are the California Test of Personality, the Pinter Personality Test, and the Thematic Apperception Test, all intended for use in primary grades to college and designed to measure various social and personal adjustment areas.
1. A number of general attitudinal scales, which estimate attitudes in diverse economic, political, social, and religious areas, are available; among the more common ones are the Allport Submission Reaction Study and the Allport-Vernon-Lindsey Study of Values.
2. Among the occupational attitudinal tests, the Occupational Interest Inventory is suitable for students with at least a sixth-grade reading level, and the Kuder Preference Record is designed for high school and college students.
3. The most popular projective test is the Rorschach Inkblot Test. The test has some reliability and validity problems, especially in prediction from trait scores to behavioral situations, but it is still widely used in many schools.
E.) Interest Inventory
Interest inventories or surveys consist of questions regarding the types of things a person likes to do in their spare time, at work, as well as their dislikes.
F.) Anecdotal Records
· Written accounts of significant individual, pupil, events, and behaviors that the teacher has observed are called anecdotal records. Only those observations that have special significance and cannot be obtained from other classroom assessment methods should be included in an anecdotal record (Cartwright and Cartwright, 1984; Gronlund and Linn, 1990).
Figure 8.3 shows an example of an anecdotal record. Notice that it provides information about the learner, date of observation, name of teacher observing, and a factual description of the event.
Most teachers have difficulty identifying particular events or behaviors that merit inclusion in an anecdotal record. What is significant and important in the life of a pupil is not always apparent at the time an event or behavior occurs. How is a teacher to select, from a hundred of observations made each day, the one that might be important enough to write down? It may take many observations over many days to recognize which events really are significant. Moreover, anecdotal records are time-consuming to prepare and need to be written up soon after the event or behavior is observed, while it is fresh in the teacher’s mind. This is not always possible. For these reasons, anecdotal are not extensively used by teachers. This does not mean that the teachers do not observe and judge classroom events; we know that they do. It simply means that they seldom write down descriptions of these events.
· Significant events and behaviors the teacher has observed in a pupil.
Anecdotal records are the most qualitative of all performance assessments because they provide only written descriptions and perceptions made by the classroom teacher. No score or rating is produced from these descriptions; there are only the qualitative descriptions themselves.
Example:
PUPIL: Lynn Gregory DATE: 12/03/92
OBSERVER: J. Ricketts
All term Lynn has been quiet and passive, rarely interacting with classmates in class or the playground. Today Lynn suddenly “opened up” and wanted continual interactions with classmates. She could not settle down, kept circulating around the room until she became bothersome to me and her classmates. I tried to settle her down, but was unsuccessful.
Figure 8.3 Anecdotal Records for Lynn Gregory.
G.) Case Study
A case study is a puzzle that has to be solved. The first thing to remember about writing a case study is that the case should have a problem for the readers to solve. The case should have enough information in it that readers can understand what the problem is and, after thinking about it and analyzing the information; the readers should be able to come up with a proposed solution. Writing an interesting case study is a bit like writing a detective story. You want to keep your readers very interested in the situation. A good case is more than just a description. It is information arranged in such a way that the reader is put in the same position as the case writer was at the beginning when he or she was faced with a new situation and asked to figure out what was going on. A description, on the other hand, arranges all the information, comes to conclusions, tells the reader everything, and the reader really doesn't have to work very hard.
When you write a case, here are some hints on how to do it so that your readers will be challenged, will "experience" the same things you did when you started your investigation, and will have enough information to come to some answers. There are three basic steps in case writing: research, analysis, and the actual writing. You start with research, but even when you reach the writing stage you may find you need to go back and research even more information.
H.) Questionare
I.) Rating Scales
· Provide the observer with more than two choices in judging: for example, always, sometimes, never or excellent, good, fair, poor, failure. Rating scales maybe numerical, graphic, or descriptive.
· Allow the observer to judge performance along a continuum rather than as a dichotomy.
In numerical scales, a number stands for a point on the rating scale. Graphic scales require the rater to mark a position on a line divided into sections by a scale beneath the line. Descriptive rating scales, also called scoring rubrics, require the rater to rate on the basis of different descriptions of actual performance. In descriptive rating scales, gradations of the performance from which the teacher chooses.
Numerical Rating Scale
Directions: Indicate how often the pupil performs each of these behaviors while giving an oral presentation. For each behavior circle 1 if the pupil always performs the behavior, 2 if the pupil usually performs the behavior, 3 if the pupil seldom performs the behavior and 4 if the pupil never performs the behavior.
Physical Expression
A. Stands straight and faces the audience.
_______________________________________
1 2 3 4
B. Changes facial expression with change in the tone o the presentation.
________________________________________
1 2 3 4
Graphic Rating Scales
Directions: Place X on the line which shows how often the pupil did each of the behaviors listed while giving an oral presentation.
Physical Expression
A. Stands straight and faces the audience.
__________________________________________
always usually seldom never
B.) Changes facial expression with change in the tone o the presentation.
__________________________________________
always usually seldom never
Descriptive Rating Scales
Directions: Place an X on the line at the place which best describe the pupil's performance on each behavior.
A. Stands straight and faces the audience.
stands straight always weave, fidgets, eyes constant, distracting
looks at the audience roam from audience movements, no eye
to ceiling contact w/ audience
B.) Changes facial expression with change in the tone o the presentation.
matches facial expressions usually no match between tone
expressions to content appropriate, occasional and facial expression;
and emphasis lack of expression distracts
J.) Sociogram
1. Description/Definitions
Sociograms are the charts or tools used to find the Sociometry of a social space, especially in the classroom environment they are a useful tool. MJB
A sociogram, also known as a friendship chart, is a diagram that allows the teacher to analyze the social makeup of the class (Wolfgang 116). A sociogram is constructed after students answer a series of questions that illustrate the students’ preferences about classmates. A sociogram is an important tool in the Social Discipline Model that allows a teacher to provide misbehaves.
1. Applications
A sociogram is a teacher-made device that is used to provide additional information regarding a student and how he/she interacts with peers. It is a valuable tool for determining how a student is viewed by his/her classmates. Students respond to a teacher-provided direction such as "List the two classmates with whom you would most like to sit", "Write the name of the person with whom you would enjoy working on a project.", "If you were going on a vacation, which of your classmates would be nice to have along, and why?"
You might also assess interaction and social perceptions using negatively worded statements or questions such as "Who would you not want to play with during recess?" (Although this variation has been shown to have no long term effects in preschoolers, it would probably result in hurt feelings for older kids.)
The results are then tabulated to determine how many times each student was chosen and by whom. This information is graphically plotted to identify social isolates, popular students, disliked youngsters, and changes in interaction patterns over time. The sociogram can be useful in a number of ways: Allowing a student to work with a chosen peer may be a motivational tool. Social isolates (those not selected by others) could be placed in interaction situations with accepting peers or could be made the center of attention in positions such as charades leader or team captain. Those who are negative perceived by others could be provided training in social skills. By developing good rapport with class leaders, you could be more influential in convincing them (and by extension, their followers) to comply with directions. Additionally, interaction and friendship changes, and a student's progress in becoming more acceptable to others can be monitored via frequent administration of the sociogram technique. Caution and professionalism are vital when using this technique. We do not want to harm any youngster's self esteem.
How to Use Sociograms
1. Devise a question. State it in simple, easy-to-understand language. Word your question to be consistent with the information you desire to obtain (e.g., who to assign as field trip partners; who is unpopular and in need of social skills instruction).
2. Have students write their answers to your question or statement. Allow and encourage your students to make their choices privately. Clearly explain any limitations on choices (e.g., number of choices, classmates only).
3. On a listing of the names of your students, write next to each student's name the number of times s/he was selected by another (tally the responses).
4. Make a large diagram of concentric rings so that it looks like an archery target. Have one more ring than the greatest number of times any student was chosen. Start outside the last ring and number the spaces from the outside toward the inside starting with "zero".
5. Write each student's name inside the ring space corresponding to the number of times he/she was chosen.
6. Draw arrows from each student to the student selected by them.
7. Survey the diagram to assess popularity and interaction preferences. This information should remain confidential.
MODULE 3: KEYS TO EFFECTIVE TESTING
LESSON 5: USES AND CLASSIFICATION OF TESTS
DEFINITION OF TERMS
TEST a measuring instrument whose general characteristic is that it forces responses to be indicative of the student’s skill, knowledge, attitude, etc…
Tests are classified into two:
- Educational Test
Any test that measures the effects of instruction.
- Psychological Test
A test that measures some intangible traits like intelligence, emotional stability, personality and interest.
CLASSIFICATION OF TESTS
Two general types of Educational Test:
- TEACHER- MADE TEST OR INFORMAL TEST
Teacher- Made Test or Informal Test is written or oral assessment that are not commercially produced or standardized.
Teacher- Made Test classified into two:
- Objective Test
Objective test is one that has only one correct answer.
Two kinds of Objective test:
- Recall type or Supply type
- Recognition type or Selection type
- Essay Test
Essay Test is one that yields different scores when two or more scores correct/check the test papers of the same examine.
- STANDARDIZED TEST
Standardized Test is one that is developed by experts, administered and scored under standard conditions and interpreted with the use of standards.
The standard tests are:
- Intelligence Test- measures the general mental ability of a child.
- Aptitude Test- measures the specific ability or talent of a child.
- Personality Test-attempt measure an individual’s personal traits scientifically.
- Interest- Inventory Test- determines the extent to which a person likes/ dislikes a vocation or profession.
RULES IN CONSTRUCTING VARIOUS TYPES OF TESTS.
TRUE-FALSE TEST
- Always make Regular True-False TEST RIGHT MINUS WRONG to avoid guessing.
- Each item should refer only to one concept.
- Avoid using a pattern for the occurrence of TRUE-FALSE.
- It must include an opinion.
MATCHING TYPE OF TEST
- Give very clear directions and above indicate the basis for matching.
- Be sure the materials in the test are homogeneous.
- Avoid a pattern for the responses.
MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS
- Provide options that are grammatically consistent. If the stem is singular, then option are all singular.
- Provide at least four options.
- Avoid the use of “a” and “an” as the last words of the item.
ANALOGY TEST
- The relationship of the first pair of words must be equal to the relationship of the second.
- All opinion must be constructed in parallel language.
- All items must be grammatically consistent.
COMPLETION TEST
- The blank spaces should be located at the end or near the end of the statement, never at the beginning.
- Be sure to have uniform length of the blank spaces to avoid clues.
- Avoid clues like a, an.
- Don’t ever mutilate the statement.
IDENTIFICATION TEST
- The definition or explanation of the term may be given by means of a phrase or incomplete statement.
- The statement should be so phrased that there is only one response.
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