ACHIEVEMENT TEST AMONG HIGHER SECONDARY STUDENTS OF SNHSS,OKKAL

ABSTRACT

                       As a teacher one is involved directly in the evaluation of the learner. Teachers teach and help the learners to learn. The learning that takes place is assessed or evaluated not only for the learner's benefit but also for the teacher to evaluate his own work. At the end of a lesson or a group of lessons, the teacher needs to get feedback on what the learner has achieved, as a result of the teacher's efforts and also, indirectly to assess his own achievement as a teacher. This feedback comes with the help of a tool, generally an achievement test. Achievement tests are used to evaluate how much a student has learned and to identify areas for improvement. 

 Achievement tests are often used in educational and training settings. In schools, for example, achievements tests are frequently used to determine the level of education for which students might be prepared. Students might take such a test to determine if they are ready to enter into a particular grade level or if they are ready to pass of a particular subject or grade level and move on to the next. I have conducted an achievement test to measure or test the achievements. it is very important tool in the school evaluation. it help to measure present proficiency, Mastery and understanding of knowledge and help to know every students. During my 3rd semester induction program, an achievement test was conduct to class plus one of SNHSS Okkal. The sample taken was 60 students of plus one E from SNHSS Okkal.

KEYWORDS: Achievement, evaluation, Construction, blueprint

INTRODUCTION

  Achievement is the accomplishment or proficiency of performance in a given skill or body of knowledge. Therefore, it can be said that achievement implies the overall mastery of a pupil on a particular context. Any measuring instrument that measures the attainments or accomplishments of a pupil's achievement must be valid and reliable. Testing is a systematic procedure for comparing the behavior of two or more persons. This way an achievement test is an examination to reveal the relative standing of an individual in the group with respect to achievement. An achievement test is a test of developed skill or knowledge. The most common type of achievement test is a standardized test developed to measure skills and knowledge learned in a given grade level, usually through planned instruction, such as training or classroom instruction. Achievement tests are often contrasted with tests that measure aptitude, a more general and stable cognitive trait. Achievement test is an important tool in school and college evaluation and has a great significance in measuring instructional progress. According to NM Downie – "Any test that measures the attainments or accomplishments of an Individual after a period of training or learning." 

The purpose of achievement test The purpose of an achievement test is to measure knowledge and skill of students. Achievement tests are used in education, business, and other fields to assess a student's progress and readiness for advanced instruction. 

OBJECTIVES OF TEST

1. to see how effectively the teaching and learner have taken place.

2.to measure whether students have the required skill needed to success in a unit.

3. to measure whether the students have achieved the objective of planned 

instructions.

4. to give educational guidance by assessing the capabilities of students.

5. teacher can identify the weakness of students and take appropriate remedial 

actions.

CONSTRUCTION OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

If a test has to be really made valid, reliable and practical, then it will have to be suitably planned. For it, qualitative improvement in the test will have to be effected. For this, the following precautions for test construction should be kept in view: -

• The principles available tests will have to be kept in view so that a test can be planned.
• The purpose and objectives of test must be defined.
• It should be decided when the test has to be conducted in the context of time and frequency.
• It should be determined how many questions have to be included in the test.
• It should be determined what types of questions have to be used in the test.
• Be sure that all important content areas are covered.
• Those topics should be determined from which questions have to be constructed. This decision is taken keeping in view the teaching objectives.
• The level of difficulty of questions should be decided at the beginning of the test.
• It should be determined if any correction has to be carried out for guessing.
• Use simple and clear language
• The format and type of printing should be decided in advance.
• It should be determined what should be the passing score.
• In order to control the personal bias of the examiner there should be a provision for central evaluation. The same examiner should check a particular question.
• Provide clear, concise and complete directions to the pupils.
• Allot time appropriately.
• Maintain confidentiality in test construction.
• A rulebook should be prepared before the evaluation of the scripts.

STEPS OF ACHIEVEMENT TEST CONSTRUCTION

To construct an achievement test the steps referred below if followed will make the test objective, reliable and valid -

First Step: Instructional Objective

(Selection of Teaching Objectives for Measurement)

The first and the most important step in planning of test is to identify the instructional objectives. Each subject has a different set of instructional objectives. So, at first those teaching objectives should be selected from all teaching objectives of subject teaching which have to be made the basis for test construction. There can be several causes of selecting these teaching objectives which have to determine related teaching, such as how much content has been studied, what is the need of student' what is the importance of specific topics in the content etc. For it, the following table can be used:

Teaching Objectives	Selected Teaching Objectives	Reason for Selections
All objectives of the cognitive domain (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) All objectives of the affective domain (receiving, responding, valuing, conceptualization) All skills of psychomotor domain (drawing skill, computational skill, constructional skill, observational skill, problem-solving skill)	Knowledge Comprehension Application (Drawing)

Second Step: Design

Assigning Weightage to Selected Objectives:

After these objectives have been selected, a teacher assigns Weightage to these objectives keeping the tasks done and importance of objectives. It is desirable to use the following table.

S.No.	Selected Teaching Objectives	Score	Percentage
1.	Knowledge
2.	Comprehension
3.	Application
4.	Skill
	Total

Weightage to Content:

Content is used as the means of realizing objectives and questions have to be constructed on its basis. Therefore, it becomes necessary to give Weightage to it. There is distinction in the nature, importance and scope of each topic. Therefore, the Weightage should be given to these facts in view; else the test would not represent the whole subject.

S.No.	Topics	Number of Items	Score	Percentage
1. 2. 3. 4.	----- ----- ----- -----

Giving Weightage to the Type of Items:

In this step, a teacher determines the number of items, their types, their relative marks. For it, it would be convenient to use the following table:

S.No.	Type of Items	Number of Items	Score	Percentage
1. 2. 3.	Long answer type Short answer type Objective type

Determining Alternatives:

At this level, it is determined how many alternatives or options should be given according to the type of questions. Giving alternatives influences the reliability and validity of a test; therefore, it is suggested that alternatives should not be given in objective type questions, while in essay type questions only internal choice can be given.

Division of Sections

If the scope or types of questions is uniform, them it is not necessary to divide the test into sections. However, if it is diverse and different types of questions have been specified and the nature of the test seems to be heterogeneous, then a separate section should be made comprising each type of item.

S.No.	Sections	Type of items	Score	Percentage
1. 2. 3.	A B C	Objective type Long answer type Short answer type

Estimation of Time:

At this step estimation of the total time the whole test is likely to calculate. Time is estimated on the basis of type and number of items. Some time should be reserved for distribution and collection of answer sheets. The following table can be used for convenience.

S.No.	Type of Items	Number of Items	Time (in minutes)
1. 2. 3.	Objective type Long answer type Short answer type

Third Step: Preparation of Blueprint

A blueprint provides a bird's eye view of the entire test. In it we can see the topics, teaching objectives, and types of questions, number of items and distribution of scores and their mutual relationships. A blueprint is the basis for test construction. A format is given below-

S.N.

Teaching Objective

Knowledge

comprehension

Application

Skill

Total

Types of Question Topic

(L)

(S)

(O)

(L)

(S)

(O)

(L)

(S)

(O)

(L)

(S)

(O)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

L- Long Answers Type S- Short Answers Type O-Objective Answers Type

Forth Step: Writing of the Questions

After the finalization of the blueprint is writing appropriate questions in accordance with the broad parameters set out in the blueprint. One should take one small block of the blueprint at a time and write out the required questions. Thus, for each block of blueprint which is filled in, questions have got to be written one by one. Once it is done, we have all the questions meeting the necessary requirements laid down in the blueprint. While selecting each small block for writing a question, you can proceed in several ways.

Either writing all questions (one by one) belonging to one objective at a time i.e. Knowledge or understanding or application Followed by other objectives, or

By taking up questions according-to their form or type i.e. Essay Type followed by Short Answer and objective Type or in any other order, or

By writing questions for one unit of the syllabus or portion to be covered by the test at a time.

Fifth step: Marking Scheme

The fifth step is to prepare the "Marking Scheme". The marking scheme helps prevent Inconsistency in judgment. In the marking scheme, possible responses to items in the test are structured. The various value points for response are graded and the marks allowed to each value point indicated. The marking scheme ensures objectivity in judgment and eliminates differences in score which may be due to idiosyncrasies of the evaluator. The factor contributing to variations in the standards of assessment, both at the intra-and the Inter-examiner levels, can be controlled by supplying a detailed scheme of marking along with the expected answers so that every examiner may interpret the questions in the same way and attain the same standard of marking without being too lenient or strict or varying in assessment. Subjectivity is thus minimized and it is believed to give a more reliable picture of the students' performance.

Sixth Step: Question-wise Analysis or Item Analysis

The sixth step is that of question-wise analysis or item analysis.it is used to calculate difficulty level and discriminative value. Such an exercise helps the paper setter to ensure that there is no imbalance in the question paper. During question-wise analysis, the paper setter analyses each question on various parameters stated in the blueprint. In the context of difficulty level, the following difficulty levels are suggested for the selection of questions as per Katz (1959) also recommendation-

S.N0.	Types of items	Difficulty Level %
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	Long answer type Alternatives 5 Alternatives 4 Alternatives 3 Alternatives 2	50% 60% 62% 66% 75%

Seventh Step: Preparation of Final Test

The final test is constructed after the above analysis for this a suitable format is prepared and norms are specified. Also, instructions for examinees are prepared. The test constructed in accordance to the above referred procedure will definitely assumes a purpose or an idea of what is good or desirable from the stand point of individual or society or both.

Achievement test is the test which measures the amount of learning of student after completing a particular learning program. It helps to evaluate how effectively the student is performing in the theory as well as the clinical areas and according to his performance a particular score or grading is assigned to the student. There are various steps which are included in construction of achievement test such as -: Instructional Objective, design, Preparation of Blueprint, Writing of the Questions, Marking Scheme, questioning, analysis and preparation of final list. It is very important that the achievement test should be valid, reliable, and practical and should be suitably planned by keeping all the objectives and purposes in mind.

BLUEPRINT

ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION OF TEST

An achievement test measure how an individual has learned over time and what that individual has learned by analyzing current performance. An achievement test is an excellence choice to analyze and evaluate the academic performance of students to determine how well they are performing against the standard. During the 3 rd semester induction program, an achievement test was conduct to class plus one commerce SNHSS Okkal. from the analysis of data most of the students performed well. value of mean is 15.5,median is 15.26, and mode is 11.04. the value obtained from standard deviation  which shows that the score of students are clustered around central tendency. the data of histogram shows the level of achievement .it helps easily to recognize and analyze data. The overall analysis is that the students performance are average. Every class have all type of students .As we follow inclusive education, most of the students are average and above average students.

CONCLUSION

Achievement tests and their design can greatly predict student success rates. A study by Black and William (1998) on the role of assessment in improving learning outcomes found that achievement tests, when combined with formative feedback, significantly enhance student performance. The researchers concluded that providing actionable feedback based on test results can lead to better understanding and retention of material, as well as increased motivation among students. Achievement test is to measure the achievement test and success achieved by a student inn a particular area. It is an important tool that can cause in a school to check the progress of students in a particular area. Test should be conducted according to the level of students. It is an effective teaching learning process.