Abstract:

Teachers’ test item development ability (TIDA) is crucial to the development of teachers’ assessment literacy. In order to better analyse the current situation of the TIDC of primary and secondary school teachers, firstly, an overall analysis was conducted from the three aspects of assessment understanding, assessment theory and technology, and the scientificity and standardisation of the use of assessment tools, and secondly, a two-dimensional four-quadrant analysis framework for teachers’ TIDA was constructed by taking the key scenarios of TIDA as the X-axis and the proficiency level of teachers as the Y-axis. It was found that although high-level teachers were significantly better than ordinary teachers in the four key scenarios of clear cognitive requirements, producing high-quality test items, scientifically assembling test papers, and rationally interpreting and applying the results, the TIDA of teachers was relatively weak in general, and was in need of further improvement. In view of this, it is necessary to enhance specific assessment techniques based on the corresponding practical teaching needs of both ordinary and high-level teachers: to accurately grasp the new curriculum standards and uphold a holistic view of comprehension; to clarify the cognitive requirements of the test items and carry out cognitive task analyses; to prepare multi-dimensional lists of details and produce high-quality questions; to grasp the quality indicators of the test items and scientifically formulate the test papers; and to reasonably interpret and apply the results. It is also necessary to provide overall support for the TIDA of teachers: to establish a sound policy for the cultivation of TIDA of teachers; to systematically improve the curriculum for TIDA of teacher training colleges and universities; to innovate the training mode of TIDA of teachers; and to enrich the professional life of daily school-based research and study with the enhancement of TIDA as the core task.

Key words: primary and secondary school teachers, test item development ability, current situation analysis, test item development technology, overall support