Essay Items

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Essay Items

Essay items have several advantages. First, they are the best way of finding out what the test taker knows and also how well the test taker can relate ideas to one another. Second, security is increased, since it is [Page 316]very difficult to plagiarize during an essay item examination. Finally, and this is very important, if the test constructor knows the material well, essay questions can effectively tap higher-order learning.

However, there are disadvantages to essay items as well. First, they emphasize writing and do not necessarily tap the test taker who is knowledgeable about ideas and their relationships to one another but just cannot express this in words. Second, it is difficult for essay questions to adequately sample the entire universe of what the test taker might have learned. Third, essay questions are not easy to score, with even a small number of items and a small number of test takers resulting in a large number of essays to read and grade.

Scoring Essay Items

Scorers should provide plenty of time to score an essay item. Each item has to be read and then scored, and often the scorer reads the items more than once, the first time for a general overview of the content and the second time for a more detailed analysis, including an assessment of content (again) and writing skills (such as grammar, transitions, and sentence usage).

A model of a correct answer should also be used to serve as a basis for comparison. Having a model greatly increases the likelihood that the scorer will evaluate each answer fairly and have as objective a standard as is possible, since the scorer can compare what is there (the test taker's response) to what should be there (the model response).

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