SCORING IN THE ESSAY TESTS QUESTIONS: METHODS, CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES

The related studies has shown that students learning is under the direct
influence of assessment and evaluation methods. Many researchers believe that essay tests can assess
the quality of the students' learning, however essay tests scoring a big challenge which causes their
unreliability in many cases. Unlike objective tests that measure the examinees' ability independent of
the individual judgment, in essay tests, the examinees' ability is directly related to the examiners'
judgment. Therefore, the accuracy of test scoring is greatly related to the methods of paper correction,
and the examiners accuracy. This study tries to explain various methods of essay tests scoring in
different published papers.
Materials & Methods: In this study, first the different papers and articles published in national and
international journals were selected by using keywords of essay test, scoring, and student assessment.
Later, they were studied and analyzed.
Results: 240 articles without time limit were found by searching in the Web. 163 articles were
excluded because of lack of relevant to the topic, and 23 articles were excluded because of lacking
abstract. Finally, 54 articles were selected to be included in the study. Based on the search results of
study, the search topic was grouped in four categories:1.defining different grading methods in essay
questions 2.selecting appropriate methods for essay questions scoring 3.the challenges of essay
questions scoring. 4. new methods of essay questions scoring.
Conclusion: Improving assessment and essay questions scoring requires using of various methods,
and the combination of multiple high level tests. In applying these kinds of tests, we should pay
attention to the reliability and validity of the essay tests and scores