Item Development
Item Development refers to the process of creating, reviewing, and refining assessment questions—called "items” that will be stored in an Item bank for use in tests or exams. It’s a key step to ensure that each question is valid, reliable, and aligned with learning objectives. Item development involves creating clear, curriculum-based questions in suitable formats (e.g., multiple choice, essay) that match different skill levels. Experts review them for quality and fairness. Items contain extensive metadata related to in-depth details and additional information and are categorized by parameters, such as topic, difficulty, and grade level, for easy access. They are tested with sample groups, when necessary, refined, and approved before being administered on an exam.
We understand that effective item development is key to ensuring the quality, fairness, and utility of assessment items, which ultimately leads to better, more reliable exams. Our commitment to careful item development is crucial in accurately assessing candidates. We thoughtfully craft each functionality to enhance the overall effectiveness and validity of exams.
In our item development process, we can easily set up workflows to diligently review questions for bias and clarity, making assessments more equitable for all test-takers. Because we prioritize strong item development, our items can be reused across multiple tests, helping us save time and resources while supporting personalized and adaptive assessments. Through this, we provide accurate performance data that helps educators and institutions make informed decisions.
We also integrate assets and references—digital resources or citations linked to each item—into our process. These include images, audio clips, diagrams, graphs, videos, URLs, and academic papers. We encourage the use of these assets and references because they enhance question clarity and engagement and support diverse item types.
We use references to ensure our questions align with curriculum goals and remain traceable for validity and reliability. With a wide range of item types at our disposal, we create tailored, interactive assessments across subjects, skill levels, and learning outcomes. Our formats—from multiple choice to simulations—engage a variety of cognitive skills while supporting inclusive and accessible design. We enable dynamic, adaptive testing by generating unique combinations of questions for each candidate, which helps reduce the chances of answer sharing, especially when candidates take the exam at different times.
Finally, our extensive range of item development empowers us to build modular test designs that are simple to reuse and adapt across different assessments, maximizing efficiency and impact.
Our efforts in item development are the foundation of a strong Item Bank, ensuring assessments are meaningful, fair, and aligned with educational goals.