A study of the effectiveness of student participation in test construction on attitude and achievement in high school chemistry classes

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of student participation in writing test questions for an electrochemistry unit on the criterion variables of cognitive achievement and affective attainment. The independent variables of gender, grade-level, and academic aptitude were controlled.;It was concluded that there was a significant relationship between participation in the writing of test questions and cognitive achievement and attitude in chemistry. Another conclusion was that a significant relationship between cognitive achievement and attitude existed. It was also concluded that there were significant independent relationships between grade-level and achievement and grade-level and academic aptitude. No significant relationship between gender and achievement was found.;The study consisted of a control group of 45 students and an experimental group of 48 students. All students were in grades 10 through 12. The experimental group was required to write test questions concerning electrochemistry while the control group completed an equivalent homework assignment instead of writing test questions. Of the 288 test questions submitted by the students 15 were used as part of their electrochemistry unit test. These 15 questions were not used to evaluate the cognitive achievement of students. Only teacher generated questions were used to assess cognitive achievement. Student attitudes were assessed from the results of the Science Opinionnaire. The 0.05 level of significance was used for all hypotheses. This study lasted three and one-half weeks.