Purpose of Blog

The purpose of this blog is to help instructors and teaching assistants at academic institutions to create quality exams. This is part of a larger project, which will eventually include a book. Given that it will take quite awhile to actually publish a book, I wanted to disseminate this information sooner rather than later because the benefits of creating quality exams are significant and straightforward. With better exams, instructors can more accurately assess student knowledge, reduce student complaints, and avoid lawsuits.

A quick overview of how to develop effective tests is needed because professors and TAs are hired or admitted into their departments because of their expertise in their field and are simply never exposed to testing theory and its applications. I certainly never was, and yet as a teaching assistant, I was given the responsibility of creating exam questions and scoring exams for hundreds of students. I certainly could have benefited from a bit of knowledge about testing at that time.

Now, more than a decade later, after receiving postdoctorate training in tests and measurements and working in the field of assessment for over 10 years, my goal is to transfer my knowledge of testing to enable anyone in an academic environment responsible for assessing students to create the best exams possible.

Granted, there are many books published on the topic. However, most books on the subject are written as lengthy textbooks costing hundreds of dollars. There are also many websites that discuss the creation of exams, but like many of the textbooks, the websites often include prescriptive advice without ever explaining why the advice is sound. In contrast, the aim of this blog is to introduce busy academics to the guidelines but also to convey why the guidelines are worth following. Thanks for reading.