what are the advantages of essay test

^{Advantages of the Essay Tests:}

1. It is relatively easier to prepare and administer a six-question extended- response essay test than to prepare and administer a comparable 60-item multiple-choice test items.
2. It is the only means that can assess an examinee’s ability to organise and present his ideas in a logical and coherent fashion.
3. It can be successfully employed for practically all the school subjects.
4. Some of the objectives such as ability to organise idea effectively, ability to criticise or justify a statement, ability to interpret, etc., can be best measured by this type ...
Logical thinking and critical reasoning, systematic presentation, etc. can be best developed by this type of test. ADVERTISEMENTS:
It helps to induce good study habits such as making outlines and summaries, organising the arguments for and against, etc.
The students can show their initiative, the originality of their thought and the fertility of their imagination as they are permitted freedom of response.
The responses of the students need not be completely right or wrong. All degrees of comprehensiveness and accuracy are possible.
It largely eliminates guessing.
They are valuable in testing the functional knowledge and power of expression of the pupil.

What are the strengths of essay exams?

Among the strengths of essay examinations, faculty who use them find they are a valuable means to measure higher-order learning and a wonderful way, when scored properly, to further student learning. Given these strengths, essay tests require careful preparation and scoring. 1. Essay Questions Test Higher-Level Learning Objectives

Are essay questions a good way to test?

Champlin’s reminiscence reveals some of the strengths and dangers associated with essay questions. They are a wonderful way to test higher-level learning, but they require careful construction to maximize their assessment effectiveness.

What is an essay test?

It is a classroom assessment that gauges student knowledge by the lengthy answer of one or more questions. Essay tests have a few questions on which the entire test grade relies. Students who excel at written assessments welcome the essay test. Other students find more than one disadvantage of the test.

What are the disadvantages of essay tests?

The concept of an essay test places more pressure on the student prior to the test than other forms. The uncertainty of which material will be tested is another issue. It adds to the usual testing anxiety that students feel prior to test day. Another uncertainty is the ability to recall the correct material.

Why is it important to take an essay test?

Why are essay type tests important?

How to evaluate an essay response?

What is an introduction essay test?

How to increase the validity of an essay?

How does a teacher gain insight into a student's abilities?

What affects scoring?

See 4 more

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What are the advantages of essay type test?

Essay type tests provide a better indication of pupil's real achievement in learning. The answers provide a clue to nature and quality of the pupil's thought process. That is, we can assess how the pupil presents his ideas (whether his manner of presentation is coherent, logical and systematic) and how he concludes.

What are the advantages of essay tests as compared to objective tests?

Essay items are generally easier and less time consuming to construct than are most objective test items. Technically correct and content appropriate multiple-choice and true-false test items require an extensive amount of time to write and revise.

What is the purpose of essay test?

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.

What are the benefits of having essay exams for the students and teachers?

Among the strengths of essay examinations, faculty who use them find they are a valuable means to measure higher-order learning and a wonderful way, when scored properly, to further student learning. Given these strengths, essay tests require careful preparation and scoring.

Which is a disadvantage of essay examination?

Some disadvantages of essay exams include the amount of time they take to grade and their inherent subjectivity. Teachers can increase their grading objectivity by covering students' names, deciding in advance the key points each essay should cover, and stopping the grading when they begin to feel tired.

What is the difference between essay test and objective test?

There are basically two types of exams: Objective - requires answers of a word or short phrase, or the selection of an answer from several available choices that are provided on the test. Essay - requires answers to be written out at some length. The student functions as the source of information.

What are the essential features of essay test?

Essays commonly contain the following: your point of view, supported by ideas, arguments and evidence. the summary and analysis of other writers' research and opinions. a clear structure, including an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion.

What is the meaning of essay test?

essay test in British English (ˈɛseɪ tɛst ) US. a test that requires answers in essay form. Most students would rather take a multiple-choice exam than an essay test. Essay tests are designed to showcase students' abilities to provide specific information.

How does an essay affect learning?

The assigning of essays to students plays a significant role in learning. Essay writing promotes critical thinking whereby you reflect on an issue and reach a conclusion. It pushes students to assess different arguments so that they can come up with stronger positions.

What is the merits and demerits of essay type test?

(i) Essay type tests are not comprehensive and some students may get good marks only because the questions have been set from the portion prepared by them. (ii) These tests are not objective and the score of a student depends on various factors such as Examiners mood and whims etc.

How can you improve the quality of an essay test?

Scoring the Essay ItemDetermine whether you will use a holistic or analytic scoring system before you write your rubric. ... Prepare the essay rubric in advance. ... Avoid looking at names. ... Score one item at a time. ... Avoid interruptions when scoring a specific question.More items...•

What are advantages of objective tests?

Advantages of objective tests Can reduce the marking workload involved, particularly on courses with large student cohorts, while still providing a reliable assessment method. Allows teachers to quickly assess a broad range of topics and provide immediate and direct feedback to both students and staff.

What is an example of an objective test?

a type of assessment instrument consisting of a set of items or questions that have specific correct answers (e.g., How much is 2 + 2?), such that no interpretation, judgment, or personal impressions are involved in scoring. True–false tests are an example.

What is an objective type test?

Definition of objective test : a test designed to exclude as far as possible the subjective element on the part of both those taking and grading it by presenting a number of factual questions to be answered by one word or a check mark instead of verbal expression and organization of material — compare essay examination.

What are the characteristics of objective test?

Characteristics of Objective Tests:These tests are highly reliable and valid as they require a one-word answer thus minimizing the subjective inference and judgment.These tests are valid, reliable and prevents bluffing.Apt for precise, pin-point, definite answer.It consists of multiple-choice answers.More items...

The Four Main Types of Essay | Quick Guide with Examples - Scribbr

Argumentative essays. An argumentative essay presents an extended, evidence-based argument. It requires a strong thesis statement—a clearly defined stance on your topic. Your aim is to convince the reader of your thesis using evidence (such as quotations) and analysis.. Argumentative essays test your ability to research and present your own position on a topic.

(PDF) ESSAY TYPE QUESTIONS & THEIR IMPROVEMENTS & SHORT ... - ResearchGate

INTRODUCTION: • Essay & short answer questions are one of the most commonly used methods for assessing student learning. The written examination in most medical examinations consists of long ...

Introduction

Essays, along with multiple choice, are a very common method of assessment. Essays offer a means completely different than that of multiple choice.

The Benefits for Students

By utilizing essays as a mean of assessments, teachers are able to better survey what the student has learned. Multiple choice questions, by their very design, can be worked around. The student can guess, and has decent chance of getting the question right, even if they did not know the answer.

The Benefits for Teachers

The matter of preparation must also be considered when comparing multiple choice and essays. For multiple choice questions, the instructor must choose several questions that cover the material covered. After doing so, then the teacher has to come up with multiple possible answers. This is much more difficult than one might assume.

Conclusion

Multiple Choice. True or False. Short Answer. Essay. All are forms of assessment. All have their pros and cons. For some, they are better suited for particular subjects. Others, not so much. Some students may even find essays to be easier. It is vital to understand when it is best to utilize the essay.

References Cited

1)Moore, S. (2008) Interview with Scott Moore, Professor at Old Dominion University

What are the strengths of essay tests?

Given these strengths, essay tests require careful preparation and scoring.

Why are essay questions important?

Unlike objective test items that are ideally suited for testing students’ broad knowledge of course content in a relatively short amount of time, essay questions are best suited for testing higher-level learning. By nature, they require longer time for students to think, organize and compose their answers.

How do teachers score essays?

Teachers score essay exams by either the holistic approach or the analytic approach. The holistic approach involves the teacher reading all the responses to a given essay question and assigning a grade based on the overall quality of the response.

What happens if a student's first essay is strong?

If a student’s first essay is strong, the examiner might read the student’s remaining essays with a predisposition that they are also going to be strong. The reverse is also true. To prevent this scoring prejudice, educators suggest reading all the answers to a single essay question at one time. Resources:

How to prevent students from spending too much time on essays?

Another good way to prevent students from spending excessive time on essays is to give them testing instructions on how long they should spend on test items .

Why should instructors build limits into questions?

Instructors should build limits into questions in order to save needless writing due to vague questions: “With some essay questions, students can feel like they have an infinite supply of lead to write a response on an indefinite number of pages about whatever they feel happy to write about.

Can essay questions be used for multiple choice?

While essay questions can assess all the cognitive domains, most educators suggest that due to the time required to answer them, essay questions should not be used if the same material can be assessed through a multiple-choice or objective item.

About Various Assessment Methods

Before we begin to review essay assessment pros and cons, we need to remind you of other assessment methods. These are as follows:

Higher-Level Learning Objectives

Essay questions are frequently used in essay tests, and they are suited well for testing higher-level learning. Due to their nature, they require more time to be answered. This kind of test follows Bloom’s hierarchy. Students are supposed to construct certain sentences by using concrete verbs. They will be given synonym words.

Holistic Scoring

Another popular method used by many educators is holistic scoring. Its principle is pretty simple. A teacher reads all the answers and gives grades according to the quality of those answers. But, commonly, it is applied for a group of students and not for a single student. Therefore, it is better to use open-ended responses.

Analytic Scoring

Another approach is called analytic scoring. This approach requires finding the essential parts for ideal answers. First, a teacher should list the main elements obligatorily included in the text. Then, students should decide when and how to implement those elements.

Certain Dangers

Now, we’d like to underline serious drawbacks in essay evaluation. The first one has been mentioned right above. Not all teachers are objective all the time long. They may not like certain students and thus deprive the latter of many grades due to subjective opinion.

Tips for Students

If you are a student and want to get the highest grades for your essay writing, you should boost your skills. We will help to improve them. Make allowances for the following tips:

Write Essays with Professionals

At times, students struggle with their academic papers. Their project may be so weak that a teacher may easily evaluate its quality without any assessment method. If you feel you cannot handle a certain essay or any other piece of writing properly, it may be reasonable to use the help of one of the custom-writing agencies.

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Why is an essay test important?

The concept of an essay test places more pressure on the student prior to the test than other forms. The uncertainty of which material will be tested is another issue. It adds to the usual testing anxiety that students feel prior to test day. Another uncertainty is the ability to recall the correct material.

What are the disadvantages of essay testing?

Time is one of the most well known disadvantages of essay testing. Instructors must read every essay, grading the content and composition, while making a judgment on how thorough the answer is. This painstaking process creates hours of grading. The exact number depends on the grader. Students usually wait a few days or more to receive essay test ...

How are multiple choice tests graded?

Meanwhile, multiple-choice tests are concrete. The tests are graded by hand using an answer key or using the famous Scantron system. The students complete special Scantron test answer sheets during the test. Instructors submit the test answers and then feed the answer sheets into a machine and graded electronically.

How are essays graded?

Essay exams are graded by human eyes and intellect, leaving lots of room for human error. The instructor must be able to accurately interpret the words that the student chose. This is done while attempting to separate the student from the test form being graded. However, the instructors prejudices concerning a problematic student ...

What is an essay test?

It is a classroom assessment that gauges student knowledge by the lengthy answer of one or more questions. Essay tests have a few questions on which the entire test grade relies. Students who excel at written assessments welcome the essay test.

Can an essay help test?

The essay can’t help but test part of the lessons covered in the classroom. No matter how creative the questions may be, a handful is not enough to perform a survey of knowledge. As a result, the students get a kind of testing tunnel vision that threatens to dislodge the information gather in the weeks prior to the exam.

Does the instructor's prejudice affect the grading process?

However, the instructors prejudices concerning a problematic student or a struggling one will ultimately intrude upon the grading process, especially since the essay grading heavily relies on the teacher’s interpretation of the student’s essay.

Why is it important to take an essay test?

The importance of essay tests lies in the measurement of such instructional outcomes. An essay test may give full freedom to the students to write any number of pages. The required response may vary in length. An essay type question requires the pupil to plan his own answer and to explain it in his own words.

Why are essay type tests important?

Essay type tests provide a better indication of pupil’s real achievement in learning. The answers provide a clue to nature and quality of the pupil’s thought process.

How to evaluate an essay response?

1. Prepare a marking scheme, suggesting the best possible answer and the weightage given to the various points of this model answer. Decide in advance which factors will be considered in evaluating an essay response. 2. While assessing the essay response, one must: a. Use appropriate methods to minimise bias; b.

What is an introduction essay test?

Introduction to Essay Test: The essay tests are still commonly used tools of evaluation, despite the increasingly wider applicability of the short answer and objective type questions.

How to increase the validity of an essay?

1. Give adequate time and thought to the preparation of essay questions, so that they can be re-examined, revised and edited before they are used. This would increase the validity of the test. 2. The item should be so written that it will elicit the type of behaviour the teacher wants to measure.

How does a teacher gain insight into a student's abilities?

The teacher can sometimes, through essay tests, gain improved insight into a student’s abilities, difficulties and ways of thinking and thus have a basis for guiding his/her learning.

What affects scoring?

3. Moreover, scoring may be affected by spelling, good handwriting, coloured ink, neatness, grammar, length of the answer, etc.