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Educational Measurement and Evaluation

Notes If diagnostic tests are related with the remedy, then they become very beneficial for students. It has
been proved on the basis of experiments that they have proved effective in instructional diagnosis
and remedial teaching for all subjects. On the basis of his experiments in mathematics, Stone has
said that diagnostic tests are very useful for small classes. Diagnostic tests and remedial teaching are
closely related. Bukner and Melbi have written that the chief purpose of diagnostsic tests is to find
out some specific weakness of a student so that the causes of weaknesses can be found out in order
to take steps for remedial teaching.

The word ‘diagnosis’ is extensively used in medical science. The patient is prescribed
medicine on the basis of the diagnosis. If the diagnosis is proper, the medicine prescribed
will cure the patient soon. In the same way, in the field of education, if the proper causes
of not learning a subject matter correctly by the students are found out, remedy too can
be done properly.

27.4 Construction and Standardization of Diagnostic Test

The subject for which a diagnostic test has to be constructed, is at first analyzed minutely and it is
determined what concepts, principles, theories, rules, facts, formulae or processes have to be attached
importance. Besides, those mental faculties of students have to be analyzed which are directly
related to such knowledge, such as reasoning, logic, thinking power, observation power etc. For
example, ability in mathematics requires to link to many fundamental theories, rules and formulae,
such as multiplication, division, addition, subtraction etc. Besides, many mental abilities are also
very important in it such as logic, thinking power and observation power etc. After this, different
mental processes at application in that subject are analyzed and noted down, and then on the related
concept, theory, rule, formula or process or mental processes, several questions are formulated.
These questions are very simple and are written in the ascending order of difficulty. In order to find
out the difficulty spots of a student, the question is noted down after which the student is not able to
solve any question, by which it is predicted that the student is unable to solve the questions of the
given difficulty. For example, questions on simple equation in algebra diagnostic test can be somewhat
as follows
1. 6x + 7 = 35
2. 27x – .19x = 12
3. x + 5 = 20
4. 4x + 2 = .9x + 5
5. 5x + .6 = 7.8
Now supposing a student is able to solve the first two equations correctly, but is not able to solve
the questions that follow, then we can conclude that he can solve the simple questions of equations,
but is unable to solve fraction or point related questions. Therefore, now the teacher focuses his
attention on this aspect and diagnoses the causes due to which he is weak in this type of questions.
Though the construction of diagnostic tests and their standardization process is similar to the
achievement tests, yet these tests are somewhat different. A diagnostic test is an original skill test,
while an achievement test is constructed not with a view to its relation in the realization of a skill,
rather it only tells about the general achievement in a subject. A diagnostic test can be individual-
oriented or group-oriented. An individual-oriented test comprises of test items related to the
weaknesses and abilities of a particular student, while in a group-oriented test, test items are
constructed keeping in view the specific group errors or weaknesses. For construction of test items,
common and specific errors of the students are collected. Stems and distractors of test items are
specified keeping in view the type of errors and their direction. The minuteness with which the
distractors are determined will bring diversity to the test. Therefore, individual and group errors of

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