Assessment writing

When you give your learners an assessment, you really want to give them a fair chance to show what they know and can do. This is coming from someone who is absurdly good at passing tests: if a learner can pass by skipping the obviously-wrong option and picking the longest one, your assessment is measuring their test-taking skills. If the goal is behavior on the job, the assessment should look like the job.

Testing for testing’s sake is also not helpful for anyone. Make sure that your quizzes actually need to be there helping the learner remember information that they will use.

Lean toward scenario-based questions. Put learners in a situation they'll actually encounter and ask them what they'd do.

Multiple-choice:

This is a question stem. Do you see how it goes at the top?

▪️This is the correct answer.

▪️This is a distractor.

▪️This is also a distractor.

▪️This is a distractor, too.

1. Make all answer choices roughly the same length. The longest answer is usually the correct one.

2. Use parallel structure. If three options are sentence fragments and the fourth is a full sentence, the different one is probably the answer. Same structure, same level of formality and detail across the board.

3. Avoid "not" questions. "Which of the following is NOT...?" might be misread, which is not fair to the learners, who might get it wrong even when they know the material. If you can't avoid it, put NOT in bold/all caps.

4. Make the wrong answers tempting. Make them real mistakes or what used to be policy.

5. Skip "all/none of the above". They let learners get credit through partial knowledge.

6. If you find yourself repeating the same words at the start of every option, move them up into the stem.

Performance tasks:

The best proof is watching someone do the thing you're trying to teach them. Some suggestions:

- Make a conversation simulation (with or without AI) and grade the learner's half of the conversation

- Have the learner complete a task in a simulated software environment

- Have the learner submit a work sample, like a draft email, report, or completed form

- Have the learner perform a procedure

A rubric with clear criteria keeps scoring consistent.

Good feedback:

When your learners answer questions, make sure to add feedback (in an eLearning module, written down, or out loud) about why the right answer is right and why the wrong answer isn't. Be kind and helpful when you give feedback, there's no such thing as brutal honesty. Being mean to your learners will only discourage them from learning.

We aren't trying to trick our learners. A good assessment gives learners a fair chance to show what they know and can do, and it gives you better data about whether your training teaches what you want it to teach.