What is a question bank? A question bank refers to a pool of test questions to be used on various assessments across time.
For example, a Certified Widgetmaker Exam might have a pool of 500 questions developed over the past 10 years. Suppose the exam is delivered in June and December of every year, and each time 150 questions are used. This strong pool of items allows the organization to easily select questions and publish a new form of the exam each time.
A question bank is more commonly called an item bank. It is due to the fact that the term question is not often used because many assessment items are not actually questions; they might be statements, vignettes, simulations, or many things other than the traditional question-and-4-answers.
However, a question bank is actually much more than the questions themselves. If you ran the Certified Widgetmaker Exam, you would want to keep track of some additional important information. This is all based on the concept of treating the question as a reusable object; if you use the item 4 times, you should never need to type/upload it 4 times. It should be in the system only once, with all its associated metadata!
| What to track | Examples |
|---|---|
| Which exam forms used each question | Dec 2017, May 2018, May 2019, Dec 2020 |
| Unique item ID | Math.Algebra.078 |
| Source/Reference | Wilson (2016) p. 123 |
| Status | New, Under Review, Active, Retired |
| Statistics | Classical difficulty and discrimination: Item response theory parameters |
| Reviewer comments | Jake Smith 2020/11/22: “I think that D is arguably correct, and we need to provide greater detail in the stem.” |
| Content area, domain, blueprint | Math / Algebra / Quadratic |
As you can see, there’s actually quite a bit of functionality that goes into a true question bank system. And this is only regarding the questions themselves – it doesn’t get into additional topics such as Workflow Management, Automated Item Generation, or Test Assembly & Publishing. A real system for managing question bank will have much, much more than just a way to store the questions. FastTest provides a powerful alternative solution to some older platforms on the market.
Looking for a deeper treatment of the topic? Check out the chapter Computerized Item Banking by ASC’s cofounder, C. David Vale, in the 2006 Handbook of Test Development.
Want to learn more about how a question banking system can help your organization? Click here, check out this other post, or fill out our contact form for a demonstration.
Nathan Thompson, PhD, is CEO and Co-Founder of Assessment Systems Corporation (ASC). He is a psychometrician, software developer, author, and researcher, and evangelist for AI and automation. His mission is to elevate the profession of psychometrics by using software to automate psychometric work like item review, job analysis, and Angoff studies, so we can focus on more innovative work. His core goal is to improve assessment throughout the world.
Nate was originally trained as a psychometrician, with an honors degree at Luther College with a triple major of Math/Psych/Latin, and then a PhD in Psychometrics at the University of Minnesota. He then worked multiple roles in the testing industry, including item writer, test development manager, essay test marker, consulting psychometrician, software developer, project manager, and business leader. He is also cofounder and Membership Director at the International Association for Computerized Adaptive Testing (iacat.org). He’s published 100+ papers and presentations, but his favorite remains https://scholarworks.umass.edu/pare/vol16/iss1/1/.
