Are Your Online Tests Valid?
You can’t make it through a year of designing eLearning without having to write test or assessment questions. If you don’t have formal training in this area you may not be familiar with test validity. Or perhaps you slept through that Educational Statistics class. (Personally, I found my Statistics textbook to be an excellent sleeping pill.)
It’s A Measuring Instrument
When you develop a test, you’re supposed to be measuring the knowledge and skills that the learner constructed, retained and can apply to new situations. However, the assessment may result in a meaningful measurement for a few reasons.
- First, your test can’t represent all the content in the course.
- Second, perhaps you tested some of the least significant content.
- And third, the most important aspect of workplace learning is usually the application of knowledge in the real world. Testing knowledge alone in a vacuum has its limitations.
