4. Appear
d. Accept 5.
Improve e. Accomplish
Furthermore, James Dean Brown formulates three guidelines that teachers should apply in constructing matching items:
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a. More responses should be supplied than premises so that
students cannot narrow down the choices as they go along by simply keeping track of the options that they have
already used.
b. The responses should usually be shorter than the premises
because most students will read a premise and then search through the options for then correct match.
c. The premises and responses should be logically related to
one central theme that is obvious to the students. Moreover, matching item has some advantages to be carried
out in testing. The first advantage is “its compat form, which makes it possible to measure a large amount of related factual
material in a relatively short time.”
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Secondly, “the effects of guessing is reduced since the student will have one chance out of a
number of responses available of guessing correctly.”
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At last, it has ease of construction.
4. Rearrangement
“Rearrangement items require the pupil to put into some specified order a series of randomly presented material.”
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In the book, Measurement and Evaluation in the Schools, Louis J.
Karmel states that any kind of specified order may be called for, such as chronology, order of difficulty, order of importance,
length, weight, logic, and so on.
64
60
James Dean Brown, Testing in Language ..., p. 57.
61
Norman E. Gronlund and Robert L. Linn, Measurement and Evaluation ..., p. 159.
62
Wilmar Tinambunan, Evaluation of Students ..., p. 65.
63
H. H. Remmers, et. al., A Practical Introduction ..., p. 243.
64
Louis J. Karmel, Measurement and Evaluation in the Schools, London: The Macmillan Company, 1970, p. 382.
For example: Rearrange these following sentences into a good paragraph
1. Suddenly, it was getting dark and he realized that he got lost
2. Once upon a time, there was a bee named Bumbee
3. Bumbee could get home and gathered with his family happily
4. One day, he felt so happy and flew alone in the forest
5. Fortunately, a butterfly appeared and she liked to help him
b. Supply-Type Test Item
1. Short-Answer
According to Norman E. Gronlund in his book, Constructing Achievement Test
, he states that, “the short answer or completion item is the only objective item type that requires the examinee to
supply, rather than select, the answer.”
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In line with that opinion, this item type “generally requires the students to examine a
statement or question then respond to it with a phrase or two, or a sentence or two, in the space provided.”
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Both short answer item and completion item can be answered by a word, phrase, sentence, number, or symbol. In the short
answer item, the question is presented as a direct question: For example:
a. What is the capital city of West Java? Bandung
b. Who invented the lightbulb? Thomas Alfa Edison
Whereas, the completion item requires student to supply the answer in an uncomplete statement.
For example: a.
The capital city of West Java is .................. Bandung b.
The name of the man who invented the lightbulb is ................... Thomas Alfa Edison
65
Norman E. Gronlund, Constructing Achievement ..., p. 57.
66
James Dean Brown and Thom Hudson, Criterion-Referenced ..., p. 74.
It seems obvious that short answer item or completion item observe performance from the lowest level of the cognitive
domain. Moreover, it is suitable for measuring a wide variety of relatively simple learning outcomes.
To make this item type effective to measure simple learning outcomes, there are some suggestions that should be noticed in
order not to make the items in a careless way:
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a. Require short, definite, clean-cut answers
b. If several correct answers synonyms are possible, count
each one correct or change the item to restrict the correct answer
c. Decide whether spelling should be disregarded or given a
separate score d.
Minimize the use of textbook expressions or stereotyped language in phrasing the questions
e. Specify the terms in which the response is to be given
f. In testing for a knowledge and understanding of definitions,
it is often better to provide the term and require a definition than to provide a definition and require the term
g. Direct questions are probably preferable to incomplete
declarative sentences h.
Hints concerning the correct answer, in the form of the first letter of a word, or a number indicating the number of
letters in a word, should generally not be given i.
The space for the response should usually be at the right of the question
j. Allow enough space for the responses to permit legible
writing k.
Arranging the answer spaces in a coloumn at the right-hand margin of the page makes scoring more convenient
Furthermore, short answer item has some advantages and disadvantages like Arthur Hughes writes in his book, Testing for
Language Teachers:
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a. Advantages:
1. Guessing will or should contribute less to test scores
2. The technique is not restricted by the need for
distractors compared with multiple choice
67
H. H. Remmers, et. al., A Practical Introduction ..., p. 223-225.
68
Arthur Hughes, Testing for Language ..., p. 79.
