How do teacher-made tests contribute to student assessment and educational feedback?

Teacher-made tests are used to check student progress. These tests provide insights into individual student learning, which is helpful feedback for students, families, and the government. They assess whether students are likely to meet course objectives. The feedback helps stakeholders evaluate the effectiveness of their work and plan for improvements.

Can you explain Bloom's Taxonomy and its role in designing effective tests?

Bloom's Taxonomy divides learning into six levels: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The initial three levels (remembering, understanding, and applying) represent simpler cognitive skills, whereas the latter three involve higher-order thinking. Assessments should include a mix of questions across these levels to comprehensively evaluate student knowledge, with a focus on the lower levels for primary and junior secondary students.

What is a Test Blueprint, and why is it important for creating fair and comprehensive tests?

A Test Blueprint is used to plan and structure tests. It ensures fair coverage of all learning objectives and cognitive levels outlined in Bloom's Taxonomy. By using a Test Blueprint, educators can create balanced assessments that accurately measure what students know. Even with time constraints, the use of a Test Blueprint is essential for test quality.

What parameters made Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria an ideal case study for test analysis?

Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria was selected as a case study. Tests from various commonly taken courses were examined to assess content coverage, appropriateness for students' learning levels, and the clarity of answer choices. The goal was to determine if these tests accurately measure students' knowledge, and identify any shortcomings in test design and implementation.

What recommendations are provided to universities to improve their test design and ensure that students demonstrate high-level proficiency?

For universities, tests should align with course content and include a higher number of questions, ideally between 70 and 100 per course, to enhance reliability. Furthermore, there should be a greater emphasis on questions that assess higher-level thinking skills, ensuring that successful students demonstrate proficiency in advanced cognitive processes. This helps universities make sure that they are measuring the course content correctly.

Open book with floating multiple-choice questions, symbolizing learning assessment

Are Your Exams Really Testing Knowledge? Uncover Hidden Flaws in Teacher-Made Tests

Nico Varela in Mind & Education August 2025 • 5 min read.

"Dive into a critical analysis of exam validity and cognitive assessment, revealing how to create fairer and more effective tests for academic success."

In Nigeria, there's growing concern about students not doing well on tests, especially big public ones. This makes people wonder if teachers are really preparing students well enough in the classroom. One important way teachers check how students are doing is through classroom tests. These tests give information that helps teachers know how well each student is learning. After the tests, the results are shared, and this feedback is helpful for students, their families, and the government, all of whom have a stake in education.

Classroom tests not only help to see where students stand but also let teachers know if they are likely to meet the goals for teaching a subject at a certain level. When these tests are done and results are out, everyone involved can look at how good their work was. Then, if needed, they can plan ways to help students improve or keep doing well.

One good thing about teacher-made tests is that teachers can pick their own words and set up the questions as they like, especially with multiple-choice questions. But because of this, there can be many different ways the questions are written, like how long the questions are, how many choices there are, and how clear the choices are. Also, some tests used in schools might not be checked well enough before they are used. So, it's important to look at how these tests are made and if they are really doing a good job of measuring what students know.

Unveiling the Layers of Learning: Cognitive Domains and Test Design

Open book with floating multiple-choice questions, symbolizing learning assessment

Bloom's Taxonomy splits learning into six levels that show how deeply someone understands what's being taught. These levels include remembering facts, understanding them, using them, breaking things down, putting them together in new ways, and judging their value. The first three levels—remembering, understanding, and using—are seen as simpler thinking skills. Most tests in primary and junior secondary schools should focus on these because students at this level are still learning how to think critically and abstractly. It wouldn't be right to ask them to do tasks that need more advanced thinking.

A well-made multiple-choice question (MCQ) should test students on all six areas of thinking, as Bloom suggested. If a test doesn't cover all these areas, it might not truly show what a student knows. A good test should have a mix of questions from different levels, with fewer questions on the very basic and very advanced levels and more in the middle. To do this well, teachers can use a Test Blueprint, which helps them plan the test. However, many teachers don't use this blueprint, even though it's a key to making sure the test is fair and covers everything. Even if teachers are busy, using a test blueprint is a must for creating good tests that check all levels of thinking.

Key Objectives of This Analysis:

Determine if the selected undergraduate tests accurately measure course content.
Examine the distribution of test questions across Bloom's Taxonomy levels.
Assess if the answer choices in the tests are reasonable and well-constructed.

The study looked at tests from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. It included tests from different courses that many students take. Researchers looked at how well the tests covered the material and if the questions were appropriate for the students' learning levels. They also checked if the answer choices were clear and made sense. This helped them understand if the tests were really measuring what the students knew.

Key Recommendations for Universities

Universities and similar institutions should create tests that align with the topics listed in the course content. It's also important to have more questions per course, aiming for between 70 and 100. This improves the test's reliability and better reflects the course's objectives. Additionally, including more questions that assess high-level thinking skills ensures that students who pass the courses can demonstrate a high level of proficiency.