Jasmine Santamaria: S00128842

EDFD307: Assignment 1A

Multiple Choice Question: Authentic Assessment

An English Teacher intends to assess students on their ability to correctly use
formal language in an extended piece of writing. At least three quarters of the
class intend to seek apprenticeships at the end of the year. The teacher wants
the assessment to be an authentic experience.
To ensure the assessment is an authentic experience for this particular group of
students, the teacher should
a.) Set the class an essay task because being able to use formal language in a
year 12 exams will greatly improve the students chance of getting into a
good University.
b.) Set a multiple choice test that asks students to circle the most appropriate
formal word for the sentence because this would not disadvantage students
with poor writing skills.
c.) Set a Resume and Cover Letter writing task because being able to write
formally for a potential employer would be meaningful and worthwhile for
students who wish to seek work post school.
d.) Set a task that requires the students to debate the necessity of formal
language in the 21st century because students could peer assess their
classmates and give constructive feedback.
Rationale:
The above question requires students to engage in higher order thinking because
knowledge of terminology must be applied to a scenario rather then a section of a
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Jasmine Santamaria: S00128842

EDFD307: Assignment 1A

choice based on recall. This question aims to measure the test takers ability to
apply knowledge of the term authentic assessment. This multiple-choice
question is fairly reliable because the incorrect choices are all plausible options.
The plausible alternatives act as distractors for all students who did not achieve
the learning outcome. For example if Student A had a understanding of the term
authentic assessment, but was not yet able to apply this knowledge, then the
chance of guessing the correct answer is one in four. While if the distractors were
not all plausible, the chance of being able to eliminate a illogical answer would
increase the students chance of being able to select the correct answer without
having achieved the learning outcome.
On first draft, each of the options included a final sentence that summarized the
way in which the task could assess authentically. For example distractor d
originally read Set a task that requires the students to debate the necessity of
formal language in the 21st century. This task would be authentic because it would
be manageable to assess a number of students at the same time. On
consultation with peers it was decided that if the stem could be simplified then
this second clause at the end of the options could be removed. The removal of the
sentence at the end of each option keeps the reading to a minimum and thus the
intended learning outcome is the focus of the question, not the students reading
ability. When reworking the stem it was difficult to phrase a question that was not
written in the negative. A question such as, Which of the following is NOT an
example of Authentic Assessment, would have made writing the distractors
easier, but would have resulted in a simplified task for students. An educated
guess bases on an understanding of how the word authentic is used in everyday
oral language could have resulted in a selection of correct answer without a
demonstration of alibility to apply definition to a scenario. The stem question is
phrased as a partial question and does not contain any information that is not
useful. The inclusion of the phrase for this particular group of students in the
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EDFD307: Assignment 1A

stem is required because of the nature of the definition of authentic assessment.

For answer c to be the true answer, the assessment task must be worthwhile and
meaningful to the real lives of the particular class described in the scenario. For a
task to be considered authentic assessment, a consideration of who is to be
sitting the test must be included. The difficulty when writing this particular task
was the potential for all alternatives to be partly correct. This issue was alleviated
by the inclusion of the brief explanation of the class scenario before the stem
question. By giving the information that many of the students intend to intend to
seek apprenticeships at the end of year 12 one of the alternatives becomes the
right answer. The questions are ordered alphabetically in an attempted to
remove bias towards any single answer. Distractor A was included because the
option would be an worthwhile and meaningful assessment if students needed to
write a end of year exam, although it is not the correct option because it is not
useful for the particular group of students described in the scenario. Option B is
a distractor because it would be a correct response if the stem asked for an
assessment that was reliable. Reliability, while an important part of assessment is
not the answer the stem is asking for. Option D is a example of of formative
assessment, while a debate may be fun, this assessment does fulfil the teachers
intended learning outcome of evaluating knowledge in a extended piece of
writing. A debate could be authentic assessment, but in this case does not fit the
assignment requirements.
This multiple choice question cannot test creativity or innovation, but by phrasing
the question as a scenario, the learning outcome of application of terminology
can be achieved. While the lengthy nature of this particular questions could
disadvantage students with poor reading skills, the question has been designed
only to include the relevant and required information. This question has been
tested on a person who does not study education, and the test subject was unable
guess the correct answer.
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Jasmine Santamaria: S00128842

EDFD307: Assignment 1A