Blueprinting in assessment

Perceptions of the Use of Blueprinting in a Formative Theory Assessment in Pharmacology Education

“…If an examiner creates a test with overly easy or difficult questions, asks well-known questions or uses unnecessarily complex language, it would mean that there is construct irrelevance variance, which can lead to the inflation or deflation of test scores. 6,7 Content under-representation in a paper can occur due to the inadequate weighting of marks for clinically relevant topics, unequal distribution of course content across the assessment or examiner bias, such as a tendency to focus on popular topics. 7 Moreover, the teachers who deliver lectures are usually not the ones who create the assessments; this can reduce the content and construct validity of an assessment, which in turn can lead to a mistrust in the assessment system on the part of the students.…”

“…6,7 Content under-representation in a paper can occur due to the inadequate weighting of marks for clinically relevant topics, unequal distribution of course content across the assessment or examiner bias, such as a tendency to focus on popular topics. 7 Moreover, the teachers who deliver lectures are usually not the ones who create the assessments; this can reduce the content and construct validity of an assessment, which in turn can lead to a mistrust in the assessment system on the part of the students. 7,8 Content imbalance may also result in students focusing less on key areas of learning during revision.…”

“…7 Moreover, the teachers who deliver lectures are usually not the ones who create the assessments; this can reduce the content and construct validity of an assessment, which in turn can lead to a mistrust in the assessment system on the part of the students. 7,8 Content imbalance may also result in students focusing less on key areas of learning during revision. 7 For an assessment paper to be valid, it should match course content, have proportional weighting of content according to clinical importance, consist of questions which are neither overly difficult nor easy and have multiple tools to determine various types of information.…”

“…7,8 Content imbalance may also result in students focusing less on key areas of learning during revision. 7 For an assessment paper to be valid, it should match course content, have proportional weighting of content according to clinical importance, consist of questions which are neither overly difficult nor easy and have multiple tools to determine various types of information. 7 Blueprinting can be defined as the creation of a template to determine the content of a test; it lists the number and type of questions across the course content, with learning objectives and relative weighting given to each topic.…”

“…7 Blueprinting can be defined as the creation of a template to determine the content of a test; it lists the number and type of questions across the course content, with learning objectives and relative weighting given to each topic. 7,8 A blueprint provides a systematic multi-step approach to an assessment, defining the purpose (e.g. formative/summative and written/practical) and scope (e.g.…”