Question writing for effective assessment

Book now

  Bookings close 4 Jun 2025 at 11am (UK time)

  This workshop series is accredited with a Certificate of Attendance for continuing professional development (8 CPD hours). To be eligible, three live sessions must be attended.

This interactive series of four workshops will provide you with a practical approach for designing effective assessments and items for a range of educational purposes. Each session builds on the learning from the last, with a chance to implement and reflect on the content during the weeks in between. 

The workshops have been designed for anyone with responsibility for writing questions, developing assessments or managing the production of tests, examinations and other assessments. If you are new to question writing, or have limited experience, this series will give you everything you need to get going. If you are a more experienced setter and want to refresh your skills, or are involved in training others in question writing, this series will increase your understanding of the underpinning principles. 

Whether you are an assessment manager for an awarding organisation, a teacher, or higher education professional – this is the course for you.

Workshop dates

Course outline

These workshops will provide you with a comprehensive guide to developing assessments and individual items. You will learn about the principles and design of assessments, exam questions and mark schemes. You will be provided with practical information and guidance, and have opportunities to evaluate a range of questions and mark schemes.

By the end of the four weeks, you will be equipped with a framework for designing valid and reliable assessments:

• Week 1 - Learn about the development and design of an assessment ‘blueprint’, by linking the principles of good assessment (e.g. validity, reliability and fairness) to key practical decisions you make in your own context
• Week 2 - Explore the principles of question writing, based on findings from research studies on key aspects such as accessibility, and explore how to put these principles into practice in the question writing process
• Week 3 - Analyse the craft of writing and reviewing questions, looking at a range of question types and exploring various resources that help writers produce good quality questions
• Week 4 - Learn about different types of mark schemes, and how to design mark schemes that will contribute to reliability

In addition to the workshops, you will take away resources to support you in applying the learning to your own context and developing your future assessment design practice.

Key learning outcomes

By the end of the four sessions you will have:

• Learned key principles for designing assessments and questions and how these link to practical decision making
• Developed strategies to improve each stage of assessment and question development
• Explored methods for drafting and reviewing questions, diagnosing issues and resolving them
• Learned about good principles of design to create effective mark schemes and justify them.