When was the last time you used an essay question to assess student performance?
Why did you choose an essay item over other forms of assessment? How comfortable did
you feel with developing the essay item and scoring
...
When was the last time you used an essay question to assess student performance?
Why did you choose an essay item over other forms of assessment? How comfortable did
you feel with developing the essay item and scoring student responses? The answers to
these questions vary from educator to educator.
Educators choose essay questions over other forms of assessment because essay
items challenge students to create a response rather than to simply select a response. Some
educators use them because essays have the potential to reveal students' abilities to reason,
create, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. In short, essay items are used for the advantages
they offer.
Despite the advantages associated with essay questions, there are also
disadvantages. Have you ever labored over the wording of an essay question in an effort to
make it clear and precise so that the students know exactly what you expect of them? Or
have you ever felt the frustration of trying to develop reliable and fair scoring criteria for
grading students' responses to essay questions only to discover that you were as unsure of
what was asked for in the essay question as the students? These are some of the difficulties
of essay questions. This workbook addresses the advantages and disadvantages of essay
questions and illustrates ways of improving the use of essay questions.
There are two major purposes for using essay questions. One purpose is to assess
students' understanding of and ability to think with subject matter content. The other
purpose is to assess students' writing abilities. These two purposes are so different in nature
that it is best to treat them separately. This workbook will focus on essay questions that
assess students' thinking skills. When going through this workbook it is important to keep
this focus in mind and to understand that some of the rules and principles discussed may
even contradict rules and principles that apply for essay questions that assess students'
writing skills.
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