Overheads for Unit 6--Chapter 9 (interpretive exercise)

OH 1
Multiple Choice Items and Interpretive Exercises: Commonalities and Differences

Commonalities

• Objective
• Selection-type
• Versatile in getting at
  • Many subjects
  • Knowledge and comprehension, application
• Cannot measure highly complex performances

Differences

• Format
• Difficulty of construction
• Difficulty of finding good distracters
• Reading demands on students

OH 2
Interpretive Exercise: Format and Uses

Other names

• Classification exercise
• Master-list item
• Key-type item

Format

• Related series of items
• Based on a common set of data (figure, etc.)
• Many forms

Uses

• Recognize inferences (examples on p. 219)
• Recognize warranted/unwarranted generalizations (p. 220)
• Recognize assumptions (p. 220)
• Recognize relevance of information (p. 221)
• Apply principles (p. 221)
• Use pictorial materials (p. 222)
• Others

OH 3
Interpretive Exercise: Advantages and Limitations

1. Interpretive skills are important in everyday life
2. Can measure more complex learning than can single, isolated items
3. As a series of related items, it can tap greater breadth and depth of skills
4. Can provide necessary background information
5. Can measure specific mental processes and be scored objectively (unlike performance tasks, which are less structured)

1. Difficulty of construction
• Introductory material (the common data) hard to find
• When found, it usually needs to be reworked
2. Heavy reading demands
3. Limited in measuring complex achievement
• Elements of, but not integration of, problem solving skills
• Recognition, not production skills

OH 4
Interpretive Exercises: General Suggestions for Constructing Them

1. Select introductory material
2. Construct series of dependent problems
3. Make sure that introductory materials requires complex mental processes

1. Relevant to learning objectives and correct complexity
2. Appropriate for students’ knowledge
3. Simple reading level (not complex words or sentence structure)
4. Brief but meaningful (abbreviate without removing essential content)
5. Revise for clarity, conciseness, and more precise purpose
6. Revise content, as necessary, when developing questions

1. Require analysis and interpretation of introductory material
• don’t ask for answers that directly answered in the introduction
• don’t ask questions that don’t require the introductory material
2. Keep number proportional to or greater than length of introductory material
3. Follow all pertinent suggestions for objective items
4. For key-type items, keep key-categories homogeneous and mutually exclusive
5. For key-type items, develop standard key-categories where applicable