Some General Forms of the Recognition Test Item

Abstract

THE CONVENTIONAL recognition test item can be interpreted as giving the examinee the task of matching a set of response options (r) to a set of stimulus options (s), where nr ^ns. This paradigm, which was introduced in an earlier paper by the writer, (1), applies to multiple-choice, double choice, true-false, rearrangement, and matching items alike, although the designations s and r are, to be sure, somewhat arbitrary. One important re striction imposed on the form of this conventional test item is that every ri, if it has a corresponding si, should have only one such si, and that for every si there should be one and only one ri. In addition, for every si, all nr response options should be equally distracting to the examinee who does not know the correct r match for si. The difficulty which item writers often have in meeting these re strictions is well known ( see e. g. 4)and there appears to be no easy solution to the problem. How ever, it is hoped that the test items constructed from some of the forms discussed in this paper will, by relaxing one or more of the restrictions on t h e conventional format, not only facilitate the writing of items but will also result in tests which are a bit more interesting to examinees and which will econ omize on the amount of paper needed for reproduc ing the tests.