Educational Psychology

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for grade 3 geography, is in. In the left hand column is the instructional content for a 20-item test the teacher has
decided to construct with two kinds of instructional objectives: identification and uses or locates. The second and
third columns identify the number of items for each content area and each instructional objective. Notice that the
teacher has decided that six items should be devoted to the sub area of geographic representations- more than any
other sub area. Devising a table of specifications helps teachers determine if some content areas or concepts are
over-sampled (i.e. there are too many items) and some concepts are under-sampled (i.e. there are too few items).

Table 35: Example of Table of Specifications: grade 3 basic geography literacy

Content Instructional objective

Identifies Uses or

locates

Total

number of

items

Per cent

of items

Identify geography tools and their uses

Geographic representations: e.g. maps,

globe, diagrams and photographs

3 3 6 30%

Spatial information: sketch & thematic

maps

1 1 2 10%

Mental maps 1 1 2 10%

Identify and locate places and regions

Physical features (e.g. lakes, continents) 1 2 3 15%

Human features (countries, states, cities) 3 2 5 25%

Regions with unifying geographic

characteristics e.g. river basins^112 10%

Number of items 10 10 20

Percentage of items 50% 50% 100%

Construct validity evidence is more complex than content validity evidence. Often we are interested in making
broader judgments about student’s performances than specific skills such as doing fractions. The focus may be on
constructs such as mathematical reasoning or reading comprehension. A construct is a characteristic of a person we
assume exists to help explain behavior. For example, we use the concept of test anxiety to explain why some
individuals when taking a test have difficulty concentrating, have physiological reactions such as sweating, and
perform poorly on tests but not in class assignments. Similarly mathematics reasoning and reading comprehension
are constructs as we use them to help explain performance on an assessment. Construct validation is the process of
determining the extent to which performance on an assessment can be interpreted in terms of the intended
constructs and is not influenced by factors irrelevant to the construct. For example, judgments about recent

Educational Psychology 244 A Global Text