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Essay test: types, advantages and limitations | statistics.
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After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Introduction to Essay Test 2. Types of Essay Test 3. Advantages 4. Limitations 5. Suggestions.
Introduction to Essay Test:
The essay tests are still commonly used tools of evaluation, despite the increasingly wider applicability of the short answer and objective type questions.
There are certain outcomes of learning (e.g., organising, summarising, integrating ideas and expressing in one’s own way) which cannot be satisfactorily measured through objective type tests. The importance of essay tests lies in the measurement of such instructional outcomes.
An essay test may give full freedom to the students to write any number of pages. The required response may vary in length. An essay type question requires the pupil to plan his own answer and to explain it in his own words. The pupil exercises considerable freedom to select, organise and present his ideas. Essay type tests provide a better indication of pupil’s real achievement in learning. The answers provide a clue to nature and quality of the pupil’s thought process.
That is, we can assess how the pupil presents his ideas (whether his manner of presentation is coherent, logical and systematic) and how he concludes. In other words, the answer of the pupil reveals the structure, dynamics and functioning of pupil’s mental life.
The essay questions are generally thought to be the traditional type of questions which demand lengthy answers. They are not amenable to objective scoring as they give scope for halo-effect, inter-examiner variability and intra-examiner variability in scoring.
Types of Essay Test:
There can be many types of essay tests:
Some of these are given below with examples from different subjects:
1. Selective Recall.
e.g. What was the religious policy of Akbar?
2. Evaluative Recall.
e.g. Why did the First War of Independence in 1857 fail?
3. Comparison of two things—on a single designated basis.
e.g. Compare the contributions made by Dalton and Bohr to Atomic theory.
4. Comparison of two things—in general.
e.g. Compare Early Vedic Age with the Later Vedic Age.
5. Decision—for or against.
e.g. Which type of examination do you think is more reliable? Oral or Written. Why?
6. Causes or effects.
e.g. Discuss the effects of environmental pollution on our lives.
7. Explanation of the use or exact meaning of some phrase in a passage or a sentence.
e.g., Joint Stock Company is an artificial person. Explain ‘artificial person’ bringing out the concepts of Joint Stock Company.
8. Summary of some unit of the text or of some article.
9. Analysis
e.g. What was the role played by Mahatma Gandhi in India’s freedom struggle?
10. Statement of relationship.
e.g. Why is knowledge of Botany helpful in studying agriculture?
11. Illustration or examples (your own) of principles in science, language, etc.
e.g. Illustrate the correct use of subject-verb position in an interrogative sentence.
12. Classification.
e.g. Classify the following into Physical change and Chemical change with explanation. Water changes to vapour; Sulphuric Acid and Sodium Hydroxide react to produce Sodium Sulphate and Water; Rusting of Iron; Melting of Ice.
13. Application of rules or principles in given situations.
e.g. If you sat halfway between the middle and one end of a sea-saw, would a person sitting on the other end have to be heavier or lighter than you in order to make the sea-saw balance in the middle. Why?
14. Discussion.
e.g. Partnership is a relationship between persons who have agreed to share the profits of a business carried on by all or any of them acting for all. Discuss the essentials of partnership on the basis of this partnership.
15. Criticism—as to the adequacy, correctness, or relevance—of a printed statement or a classmate’s answer to a question on the lesson.
e.g. What is the wrong with the following statement?
The Prime Minister is the sovereign Head of State in India.
16. Outline.
e.g. Outline the steps required in computing the compound interest if the principal amount, rate of interest and time period are given as P, R and T respectively.
17. Reorganization of facts.
e.g. The student is asked to interview some persons and find out their opinion on the role of UN in world peace. In the light of data thus collected he/she can reorganise what is given in the text book.
18. Formulation of questions-problems and questions raised.
e.g. After reading a lesson the pupils are asked to raise related problems- questions.
19. New methods of procedure
e.g. Can you solve this mathematical problem by using another method?
Advantages of the Essay Tests:
1. It is relatively easier to prepare and administer a six-question extended- response essay test than to prepare and administer a comparable 60-item multiple-choice test items.
2. It is the only means that can assess an examinee’s ability to organise and present his ideas in a logical and coherent fashion.
3. It can be successfully employed for practically all the school subjects.
4. Some of the objectives such as ability to organise idea effectively, ability to criticise or justify a statement, ability to interpret, etc., can be best measured by this type of test.
5. Logical thinking and critical reasoning, systematic presentation, etc. can be best developed by this type of test.
6. It helps to induce good study habits such as making outlines and summaries, organising the arguments for and against, etc.
7. The students can show their initiative, the originality of their thought and the fertility of their imagination as they are permitted freedom of response.
8. The responses of the students need not be completely right or wrong. All degrees of comprehensiveness and accuracy are possible.
9. It largely eliminates guessing.
10. They are valuable in testing the functional knowledge and power of expression of the pupil.
Limitations of Essay Tests:
1. One of the serious limitations of the essay tests is that these tests do not give scope for larger sampling of the content. You cannot sample the course content so well with six lengthy essay questions as you can with 60 multiple-choice test items.
2. Such tests encourage selective reading and emphasise cramming.
3. Moreover, scoring may be affected by spelling, good handwriting, coloured ink, neatness, grammar, length of the answer, etc.
4. The long-answer type questions are less valid and less reliable, and as such they have little predictive value.
5. It requires an excessive time on the part of students to write; while assessing, reading essays is very time-consuming and laborious.
6. It can be assessed only by a teacher or competent professionals.
7. Improper and ambiguous wording handicaps both the students and valuers.
8. Mood of the examiner affects the scoring of answer scripts.
9. There is halo effect-biased judgement by previous impressions.
10. The scores may be affected by his personal bias or partiality for a particular point of view, his way of understanding the question, his weightage to different aspect of the answer, favouritism and nepotism, etc.
Thus, the potential disadvantages of essay type questions are :
(i) Poor predictive validity,
(ii) Limited content sampling,
(iii) Scores unreliability, and
(iv) Scoring constraints.
Suggestions for Improving Essay Tests:
The teacher can sometimes, through essay tests, gain improved insight into a student’s abilities, difficulties and ways of thinking and thus have a basis for guiding his/her learning.
(A) White Framing Questions:
1. Give adequate time and thought to the preparation of essay questions, so that they can be re-examined, revised and edited before they are used. This would increase the validity of the test.
2. The item should be so written that it will elicit the type of behaviour the teacher wants to measure. If one is interested in measuring understanding, he should not ask a question that will elicit an opinion; e.g.,
“What do you think of Buddhism in comparison to Jainism?”
3. Use words which themselves give directions e.g. define, illustrate, outline, select, classify, summarise, etc., instead of discuss, comment, explain, etc.
4. Give specific directions to students to elicit the desired response.
5. Indicate clearly the value of the question and the time suggested for answering it.
6. Do not provide optional questions in an essay test because—
(i) It is difficult to construct questions of equal difficulty;
(ii) Students do not have the ability to select those questions which they will answer best;
(iii) A good student may be penalised because he is challenged by the more difficult and complex questions.
7. Prepare and use a relatively large number of questions requiring short answers rather than just a few questions involving long answers.
8. Do not start essay questions with such words as list, who, what, whether. If we begin the questions with such words, they are likely to be short-answer question and not essay questions, as we have defined the term.
9. Adapt the length of the response and complexity of the question and answer to the maturity level of the students.
10. The wording of the questions should be clear and unambiguous.
11. It should be a power test rather than a speed test. Allow a liberal time limit so that the essay test does not become a test of speed in writing.
12. Supply the necessary training to the students in writing essay tests.
13. Questions should be graded from simple to complex so that all the testees can answer atleast a few questions.
14. Essay questions should provide value points and marking schemes.
(B) While Scoring Questions:
1. Prepare a marking scheme, suggesting the best possible answer and the weightage given to the various points of this model answer. Decide in advance which factors will be considered in evaluating an essay response.
2. While assessing the essay response, one must:
a. Use appropriate methods to minimise bias;
b. Pay attention only to the significant and relevant aspects of the answer;
c. Be careful not to let personal idiosyncrasies affect assessment;
d. Apply a uniform standard to all the papers.
3. The examinee’s identity should be concealed from the scorer. By this we can avoid the “halo effect” or “biasness” which may affect the scoring.
4. Check your marking scheme against actual responses.
5. Once the assessment has begun, the standard should not be changed, nor should it vary from paper to paper or reader to reader. Be consistent in your assessment.
6. Grade only one question at a time for all papers. This will help you in minimising the halo effect in becoming thoroughly familiar with just one set of scoring criteria and in concentrating completely on them.
7. The mechanics of expression (legibility, spelling, punctuation, grammar) should be judged separately from what the student writes, i.e. the subject matter content.
8. If possible, have two independent readings of the test and use the average as the final score.
Related Articles:
- Merits and Demerits of Objective Type Test
- Types of Recall Type Test: Simple and Completion | Objective Test
Educational Statistics , Evaluation Tools , Essay Test
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