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TOPIC Evaluation of Learning BRIEF INTRODUCTION All nurse educators need to know methods of evaluating learning. Whether you are evaluating health teaching, what staff has learned from an in-service program, or what students have learned in an academic course, still the concepts of evaluation remain constant. The nurse educators should use evaluation results to point out the students strengths and weaknesses and to help them analyze the sources of his/her difficulties. Evaluation methods should be based on learning objectives. Objectives might be evaluated by giving a test of some sort, a behavioral examination, or a graded assignment. OBJECTIVES General Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the student should be able to be familiar with the methods of evaluating learning, explain the meaningful nature of evaluation, enumerate the purposes of evaluation, understand the concepts and rules on each types of test questions, and determine the appropriate type of test questions according to the subject. Specific Objectives: A. Psychomotor Objective To create a good evaluation exam through the use of different types of test questions effectively. B. Cognitive Objectives To learn how to evaluate learning To identify the different types of test questions C. Affective Objective To comply with the concepts and principles in applying test question methods

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MOTIVATION Game/ Activity

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LESSON PROPER A. What is Evaluation? -Evaluation is a continuous process of inquiry concerned with the study, appraisal and improvement of all aspects of the educational program. It is designed as an operational control to guide the learning sequence as well as a quality control to test the results. Ideally, evaluation includes many aspects of learning besides the students degree of information and skill. His achievements as they relate to his aptitude, his work habits, and his understanding should be part of the evaluation. -It is also the process of determining the changes in the student as a result of teaching and of his experiences. -It is a systematic attempt at ascertaining the amount of progress made in the education of the student toward the realization of objectives of education. -It is an act of judging the students acquisition of all forms of learning outcomes based not only on the definitive data of the students subject matter achievement in the learning of facts, skills, and abilities but also on descriptive, qualitative data about his personality changes such as social attitudes, interests, ideals, ways of thinking, work habits, and personal and social adaptability. B. Purposes of Evaluation

-The purpose of evaluation, however, is not merely to check on students achievement but to provide a means of determining the effectiveness of the curriculum of the instructional materials, and of the classroom activities. In each instance, the evaluation is designed to determine whether, and to what extent, they promote progress toward the established objectives. -analyze the students learning styles -appraise achievement -determine the effectiveness of a teaching methodology -diagnose students strengths and weaknesses -gather information that could be used to build on the strong and positive qualities and improve the weak traits of students -know how student learn to determine appropriate teaching methodology C. Evaluation Methods

- The written quiz or test in many forms is the most common tool used to assess learning. However, it has been abused and misused. Many a time the written test is not appropriate as an evaluation tool and yet because it is the tool with which we are familiar, it is used. C.1 Multiple-choice questions Advantages: 1. Although they are challenging to create, they are easy to score and can be scored by computer. 2. They are a less subjective form of evaluation than essay questions (Brady, 2005). 3. Licensure and certification examinations are multiple-choice tests, and therefore educators want learners to be familiar with questions similar to those that they will be taking on these exams. -Some people have criticized heavy dependence on multiple-choice questions in nursing tests because they think that the highest levls of knowing and critical thinking abilities cannot be tested by this means (Masters et al., 2001). -McDonald (2002) and Morrison and Free (2001) have made the case that as long as multiple-choice items require multilogical thinking (i.e., knowledge of several facts to be applied to a clinical situation), critical thinking is being tested and that these tests can be written at the application level or higher. 2 Parts of multiple-choice question: 1. Stem- the question itself. It can be worded as a question or as an incomplete statement. 2. Options- The possible answers or solutions that follow. The correct option is termed the answer or key, and the incorrect options are called the distractors. Beginning item writers may find it easier to write actual questions, but either format is acceptable. Research has not identified any significant differences in test outcomes when either format was used (Considine, Botti, & Thomas, 2005). In either case, the stem should clearly state the problem and make sense in itself without the reader having to look at the options to find out what is being asked.

Example: Stem worded as a question Which phrase best defines atelectasis? a. A collapse in a portion of a lung b. Fluid in the lung c. Fluid in the pleural space d. Outpouchings in the bronchial walls Stem written as an incomplete statement a. b. c. d. Atelectasis can best be defines as A collapse in a portion of a lung. Fluid in the lung. Fluid in the pleural space. Outpouchings in the bronchial walls.

The stem should be as short as possible while still conveying the ideas clearly. An example of a needlessly wordy stem is as follows: Mr. Smith is an 80-year-old retired man with a history of diabetes. He occasionally visits the local hospital Emergency Department because his blood sugar is very high. He has called the physicians office this time with complaints about pain in his legs and feet and crawling sensations. What can the nurse conclude about what is currently wrong with Mr. Smith? A more succinct and pertinent stem is the following: An 80-year-old diabetic man who frequently runs high blood sugar complains of pain and crawling sensations in his legs and feet. The most likely interpretation of his symptoms is: -Try to minimize the amount of reading that the learner has to do while taking the test -Any information that is not needed to answer the question should be removed. -The stem should include any words that might be redundant in the options. For instance, if each options starts with It is a . . ., it would be better to add those words to the stem or change the stem to reduce the length and redundancy of the options. An illustration of this point is as shown:

What is lung surfactant? a. b. c. d. It It It It is is is is the external lining of the lung. a lipoprotein substance in the alveoli an abnormal fluid accumulation. the black color that results from smoking.

It would be better to reword this question to say: Surfactant in the lung refers to a. b. c. d. The external lining of the lung. A lipoprotein substance in the alveoli. Abnormal fluid accumulation. The black color that results from smoking. -Negative stated terms should be avoided unless they test for important points. Negative terms in the stem tend to make questions more confusing. A question such as Which phrase does NOT define atelectasis? would be poor because of the focus on the negative. Another way to handle negative questions is to write them in the except format, such as: All of these statements define atelectasis EXCEPT. . Although these kinds of questions are not recommended, it may be difficult to test some material without resorting to them at times. When they are used, the word except should be placed near the end of the stem and should be capitalized or underlined. The number of options that follow the stem may vary. There is no magic in having four options, although that is the usual pattern. Adding a fifth option decreases the chance of a learners guessing the answer correctly, but sometimes it is so difficult to find plausible distractors that is better to have only three options rather than make up nonsense distracters (McDonald, 2002; Gaberson & Oermann, 2005).

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EVALUATION/ ASSESSMENT