Examining Social Studies Course Questions in Terms of Question Type and Test Item Writing Techniques

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the question type of the written exam questions prepared by the social studies teachers and to examine the compatibility of the questions with the item writing techniques by using the document analysis method. Study data were collected from 20 social studies teachers and analyzed through the "Item Writing Techniques Checklist". Research findings revealed that social studies teachers preferred multiplechoice question types the most in written exam questions, followed by two-choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching and open-ended question types, respectively. In addition, findings showed that teachers were open to improvement reading criteria such as phrasing the stem of the question clearly, directly and simply, creating equivalent clauses in grammar, length, and complexity, distractor development, shaping items around a single proposition or idea, stating that each equivalent may not be used once, more than once, or not at all, including more responses than premises, not leaving spaces of the same width, and hinting at the correct answer. Based on these result, it I suggested to conduct applied studies to investigate the reasons why open-ended questions are rarely used although they are crucial in terms of developing students' high-level thinking skills as well as to determine the level of acquisition of the achievements in the analysis, synthesis and evaluation steps and to develop projects to ensure the professional development of teachers in terms of acquisition-based and skillbased item writing techniques.