Can Observation Be Trained in School Children!

Abstract

This study was an attempt to determine the necessity for adherence to three multiple-choice item construction principles recommended by experts for teacher-made tests. These principles involved the location of the blank in the stem, the use of complete or incomplete sentence stems, and the presence or absence of extraneous (noncueing) material in the stem. Over 480 high school juniors and seniors viewed a film and completed one of six test forms about its content. It was found that the item construction violations had a slight effect on the test results for these high school juniors and seniors.