How can table of specifications be developed for assessment? How is it helpful for assessment?

If you want to view other related topics. Click Here.

Assessment of Learning

Table of Specification:
The purpose of a Table of Specifications is to identify the achievement domains being measured and to ensure that a fair and representative sample of questions appear on the test. Teachers cannot measure every topic or objective and cannot ask every question they might wish to ask. A Table of Specifications allows the teacher to construct a test which focuses on the key areas and weights those different areas based on their importance. A Table of Specifications provides the teacher with evidence that a test has content validity, that it covers what should be covered.

Designing a Table of Specifications:
Tables of Specification typically are designed based on the list of course objectives, the topics covered in class, the amount of time spent on those topics, textbook chapter topics, and the emphasis and space provided in the text. In some cases a great weight will be assigned to a concept that is extremely important, even if relatively little class time was spent on the topic.
Three steps are involved in creating a Table of Specifications:
1) choosing the measurement goals and domain to be covered,
2) breaking the domain into key or fairly independent parts- concepts, terms, procedures, applications, and
3) constructing the table. Teachers have already made decisions (or the district has decided for them) about the broad areas that should be taught, so the choice of what broad domains a test should cover has usually already been made. A bit trickier is to outline the subject matter into smaller components, but most teachers have already had to design teaching plans, strategies, and schedules based on an outline of content.

How can the use of a Table of Specifications benefit your students, including those with special needs?
A Table of Specifications benefits students in two ways. First, it improves the validity of teacher-made tests. Second, it can improve student learning as well. A Table of Specifications helps to ensure that there is a match between what is taught and what is tested. Classroom assessment should be driven by classroom teaching which itself is driven by course goals and objectives. In the chain below, Tables of Specifications provide the link between teaching and testing.

Objectives Teaching Testing:
Tables of Specifications can help students at all ability levels learn better. By providing the table to students during instruction, students can recognize the main ideas, key skills, and the relationships among concepts more easily. The Table of Specifications can act in the same way as a concept map to analyze content areas. Teachers can even collaborate with students on the construction of the Table of Specifications- what are the main ideas and topics, what emphasis should be placed on each topic, what should be on the test? Open discussion and negotiation of these issues can encourage higher levels of understanding while also modeling good learning and study skills.

References: Assessments, grading student work, and analyzing student performance on individual test items or criteria.

Examples of Reliability Measures:

• Inter-rater – Two separate individuals (for instance, instructor and TF, or peers) evaluate and score a subject’s test, essay, or performance, and the scores from each of the raters are correlated. The correlation coefficient is then used as an estimate of reliability. Several other statistics can also be calculated by instructors to compare the scores from two raters. For instance, Cohen’s kappa considers the amount of agreement that may occur between two raters as a result of chance.
• Test-Retest – Individuals take the same test on separate occasions and the scores can be correlated by instructors, using the correlation coefficient as the estimate of reliability. Because individuals learn from tests, this approach should be sensitive to the amount of time and degree of learning between test administrations.
• Parallel Forms – Two equivalent tests, measuring the same concepts, knowledge, skills, abilities, etc., are given to the same group of individuals, and the scores can be correlated by instructors. The correlation coefficient is the estimate of reliability. Instructors should note that designing two separate but identical tests can be very difficult.
• Split-Half – One test is divided into two sets of items. An individual’s score on half of the test is correlated with their score on the other half of the test. This approach accounts for testing fatigue and gradual shifts in approach as the test was designed. Instructors can decide to split a test in many different ways (i.e. even versus odd, first versus last, etc.), but should be aware that the splitting method will influence the correlation coefficient.
• Cranach’s Alpha – Cranach’s Alpha is the most commonly reported measure of reliability when analyzing Liker type scales or multiple choice tests. It is generally interpreted as the mean of all possible split-half combinations, or the average or central tendency when a test is split against itself. For reference, an alpha above .7 is typically considered acceptable. Cranach’s Alpha can be calculated by instructors in Excel or any other statistical software package.