BSU-College of Teacher Education

Preparing a
Table of Specifications
Prof Ed 35: Assessment of Student Learning

JANET LYNN S. MONTEMAYOR

Read through the following cases. Then, reflect whether the teachers in the
given situations made reasonable decisions or not:

• Case 1: Teacher A announces that the third periodical examination in

Social Studies will cover Chapters 5 and 6 of the textbook. She actually
included 10 questions taken from Chapter 7 to “test if her students did
advanced reading.”

• Case 2: Teacher B gives a quiz in Physics. Students try to recall their

lessons as their teacher reads every question. They find the 10th item
most difficult and the questions was: “What is my complete name?”

• Case 3: Teacher C prepares items for a test in Earth Science. Most of

the questions he included were about the MOON because he has many
items in his file about it, though it was the lesson with the least
coverage.

• Case 4: Teacher D is constructing a periodical examination for her

Communication Arts class. Because she wanted to be able to score the
test papers quickly, she prepares true-false items only.

• Case 5: Teacher E constructs items for a periodical examination in

Mathematics. Thinking of the nature of the subject, he prepares 10 word
problems for his students to solve.

• Case 6: Teacher F and his colleagues in a government high school are

required to submit a table of specifications. He makes one based on the
test he has earlier constructed.

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Have you ever been a student to any of the teachers described above?
How did you feel when you were in those situations? Do you consider the test
fair?
The Table of Specifications
For a test to be valid, there must be a good match between the content of
the test and the content of the relevant domain. A Table of Specifications is
the framework for the structure of the test. It outlines the content of a test
especially in relation to the curricular content that the test intends to cover. It
also specifies the number of items or points which will be allotted to each topic.

The table of specifications, otherwise called the test blueprint, is a two-

way chart. The grids relate instructional objectives to the coverage of the test.
Columns list the objectives or "levels of skills" to be addressed; rows list the key
concepts or content the test is to measure, such as knowledge of facts,
comprehension of concepts, and ability to apply or synthesize material. The
components of the TOS specify the number of items to be constructed for each
content area and for each level of thinking that is desired from students.

Purposes

The TOS is essential to good test construction. As tool, it supports

teachers in making professional judgment when creating or selecting items for
use with their students. As blueprint, the TOS ensures that a test will sample
all important content areas and cognitive processes. Through the TOS,

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teachers can be assured that they are measuring student learning across a
wide range of content as well as cognitive processes requiring lower and higher
order thinking. The information in the table may also be used to interpret
scores for a cluster of items with a common cognitive level that may help the
user evaluate different test performance, i.e., how well students or groups of
students perform in relation to different cognitive levels in the taxonomy.
 Specifically, the table of specifications is designed to:

▪ Help in preventing teachers from having too many questions in one

domain of a particular lesson.
▪ Enable teachers to develop alternative forms while maintaining the
reliability of the test.
▪ Empower teachers to create a suitable test for their students while
maintaining the standard.
▪ Provide teachers a clear framework to do quality assurance in terms of
the representativeness of items in the achievement domain.
▪ Be used to list the difficulty of questions which teachers may improve the
quality of test in future.
▪ Limit teachers to interpret students’ scores to the scope of the test.

Construction

One of the many things to be done in planning for the preparation of a

test is the construction of the table of specifications. The TOS is developed
before the test is written. In fact it should be prepared before the actual
teaching begins.

The table of specifications has several parts (Figure 1). The first few lines

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indicate the heading, which indicates the name of the school, college, and
department for which the examination was prepared for (if applicable), and
address of the school. This is an essential part because the TOS is considered
an official document or record belonging to the institution. Label is another
element of the TOS, which is usually written at the center of the document and
emphasized. This part tells the kind of document being prepared. Course
title specifies the subject/course which the examination covers. Test period
indicates the particular occasion that the examination is prepared for. In the
example, format follows that of the tertiary level. This may be altered to
grading periods as in the case of the basic education level. Objectives detail
the student-centered purposes of the examination in the three domains of
learning, namely cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. The first column of the
TOS, Coverage, enumerates all lessons included in the examination while
duration specifies the corresponding number of meetings spent for each topic.
Number of points indicates how much of the examination will be constructed
on each particular lesson. This sum is distributed among the six cognitive
levels reflective of the objectives of the examination. Type of test designates
the item format assigned for each lesson while item placement indicates the
specific part and corresponding numbers in the examination where the topics
are found. Below the table, the name of the teacher is indicated, followed by
the name of the immediate supervisor.

Heading

Label
Course Title Test Period

Objectives

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Coverage

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Duration

No. of Points

Cognitive Levels

Type of Test

Item Placement

Figure 1. Parts of the Table of Specifications

Your Task

Prepare the Table of Specifications for the examination you will construct for
this course. Use the same format given in Figure 1. You may have it encoded in a
letter-size (8.5” x 11”) paper in landscape orientation.

Consider the following step-by-step procedure in constructing your TOS:

1. Formulate student-centered objectives in the cognitive, affective, and

psychomotor domains. You may have more in the cognitive domain since it
is a written examination you will be preparing. Remember that the
objectives should be OSMARTER: observable, specific, measurable,
attainable, result-oriented, time-bound, encompassing, and realistic (visit
https://elearninginfographics.com/blooms-revised-taxonomy-action-verbs-
infographic/). Avoid verbs such as understand, appreciate, learn, among
others unless specifying a particular activity. For example, “appreciate
concept of heroism by writing an essay about the heroes in their respective
community.”

2. Outline the topics covered in the examination. Be specific as much as

possible, but not too much that you would need more than one page for
your TOS!

3. Assign the number of meetings for each lesson, which should add up to 25
meetings (based on the 120 school days mandated by the Department of
Education). You may assign numbers arbitrarily, but make sure you base

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them on your objective judgment regarding the importance and length of the
lessons.

For this column, percent may be assigned in place of time. Percent is used
especially in cases where number of meetings spent on a topic is difficult to
determine. To fill out the column, assign certain percent to each topic.
Make sure that the number is representative of the importance and length of
the topic. Check that the sum of the numbers under this column is 100%.
4. Decide on the total number of points to be given in the examination. In
doing so, consider the time given for the examination vis-à-vis the ability of
your students. For your project, however, let us set the total number of
points at 100. Then, compute the number of points to be given per lesson.
Use the equation below:

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠
𝑛𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛 = 𝑥 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠

Use the same formula for every lesson. Round-off answers to the nearest
whole number. Then, add all numbers in the column. You should get 100
for the sum. If not, make the necessary adjustments by adding/subtracting
one or two points from some topics.

If percent is used in the preceding column (instead of number of meetings),

use the equation below:

𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑐

𝑛𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛 = 𝑥 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠
100%

Remember to round off outputs to whole numbers. Then, check that the
sum of the numbers under this column is equal to the total number of
points set earlier. If not, make the necessary adjustment.

5. Distribute the number of points to the different cognitive levels. Make sure

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the distribution is based on your objectives and the nature of the lessons as

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well. You may not assign points to some cognitive levels but you are
encouraged to include more in the higher order thinking skills (application,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation).

6. Decide on the item format to be constructed for each lesson. Again, you
need to review your objectives and the nature of the lessons. Assign one or
two item formats only for each lesson. In the same manner, a test format
may be used for one or two lessons. There should be four or more item
formats included in your TOS.
7. Finally, assign the item placements. Indicate the part of the test (I, II, III) and
the corresponding numbers in the examination.

8. Always refer to the given example.

9. Remember to write your name at the bottom of the table. Below your name,
write teacher/instructor/professor.

10. Submit your output on September 23, 2019.

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