Is your assessment a waste of time?

It is an indisputable fact that tests are potent instruments for assessing diverse dimensions of an individual's abilities, as exemplified by their extensive use in critical domains like university entrance exams, certification tests, and learning validation.

How about your tests? Despite their operational effectiveness and potential to provide accurate and informative data on individuals, tests can very easily transform into a waste of time, money, and resources if they are malformed or improperly conducted.

Designing tests that yield the intended outcomes is not a difficult task, but it necessitates having the appropriate tools and framework at your disposal, along with following the appropriate methodologies.

Below are four simple questions you can ask yourself to ensure that your assessment is generating dependable results:

1. Is there a tree structure list of measurement aspects mapped to your test questions?
2. What measures do you take to maintain the integrity of your assessment and prevent cheating?
3. Do you use auto-generated norms or benchmarks to evaluate scores obtained in various measurement aspects?
4. Do you analyze the performance of test questions to improve your test over time?

Assessment professionals who value their work follow the above steps to avoid their efforts going to waste.