Faculty members of the University of Health and Allied Sciences have participated in the second phase of a capacity-building workshop, focusing on Strategic Assessment Techniques for Developing Learners’ Skills and the construction of Test Items.
The training objectives were centered on how to prepare test specification tables, coming up with clearer examination questions with different levels of difficulties, and minimising errors in preparations of papers and results.
Rev. Dr Kofi Ashiboe-Mensah, the Head of Quality Assurance from the Ho Technical University, who facilitated the workshop, said Assessment had important purposes such as improving lesson delivery.
It also helped the learner to progress, provided information to parents, employers and other stakeholders.
Touching on a typical example under the various types of Assessment in the educational system such as Formative Assessment, he said it involved an approach to teaching and learning that created feedback, which was used to improve students’ performance.
Some examples under the Formative category were Diagnostic Assessment (Entrance exams and SWOT Analysis), Continuous Assessment, and Group Assessment.
On the Assessment methods, he exposed participants to Written (structured), which included test and examination, and homework or assignment.
Dr Ashiboe-Mensah also took the participants through the principles for constructing test items, types of essays, and principles for scoring essay tests.
“Write items as early as possible (when teaching is going on) to allow for reviews before submission, Innovation and creativity in items construction. Set original items, not textbooks or past questions.”
“Set well-defined items that are clear, unambiguous and grammatically correct with,” he added.
Over 170 Faculty members of the University took part in the workshop.
