Domain Testing: Divide and Conquer - Testing Education

specifically said, “A pretest is valuable only when it is likely
that some of the learners will have partial knowledge of the
content. If time for testing is a problem, it is possible to
design an abbreviated pretest that assesses the terminal
objective and several key subordinate objectives” (p. 147).
The entry behavior test and pretest can be combined into one
test if time is especially short (Dick et al., 2001).
o Practice Tests: These are administered during the
instruction at regular intervals, not only because it helps the
learners to remain involved with the instruction, but also
because they are like milestones that indicate how much the
student has learned so far. This helps the instructor provide
feedback to the learners from time to time and lets students
understand where they are doing well and where they need to
improve.
o Posttest: This is administered to determine how much the
learners have learned and whether or not the performance
objectives have been met. According to Dick et al. (2001),
“Posttests are administered following instruction, and they
are parallel to pretests, except they do not include items on
entry behaviors” (p. 148). In addition, Worthen et al. (1997)
contended that some instructional designs are posttest-only
designs because a pretest in those circumstances might not
provide useful information for assessment and evaluation.
• Objectives-Referenced Testing: According to Worthen et al.(1997),
unlike norm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing strategies that
provide a standard for judging learners’ performance, objectives-
referenced and domain-referenced testing strategies do not provide any
such standards. In objectives-referenced tests, the test items are
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