The Test Instruments Development Based on the Items Complexity

Currently the reformation of the approaches to power engineering education employs the ideas of the competence concept. That requires testing instruments that would enable effective management of student-centred pedagogical interaction, objective and reliable evaluation of the students' learning outcomes and professional competence according to the educational programmes. The purpose of the research was to develop a method for a learning or testing task designing considering its complexity. The gradual approach to mental actions formation became the basis for allocating the description indicators of the student's actions while dealing with a learning task or a test item. Some examples of learning and testing tasks drawn up for power engineering students were given and analysed in the complexity aspect. The findings allowed the conclusion about the possibility and method to differentiate tasks according to their complexity through the analysis of the tentative basis, process of execution and novelty of the learner's actions to provide a comprehensive assessment of students' learning outcomes.