One of the biggest questions we ask ourselves is “How do we know students are learning?” And to answer this question we devise endless varieties of assessments. Among these, the multiple choice test has endured as one of the most common forms of assessment. From our personalized classroom tests to national standardized ones, options A, B, C, D, and E are the answer choices our students are most likely to encounter.
There are several advantages to the multiple choice test, but also many pitfalls. We must ensure we are selecting the right assessment and designing it to maximize its purpose. Are you using your multiple choice tests the right way?
First, multiple choice tests may or may not be the best method of assessment. Although running bubbles through a machine really makes them a breeze to grade, that alone should not be the determining factor on how students should be assessed. Other methods – like written answers, graded discussions, or out-of-class writings and projects – may be other equally viable methods of assessment.
When it comes to assessment, the first question you should ask yourself is, “What do I want students to demonstrate they know or can do?” The follow up question is, “What is the best way for students to demonstrate this?” At times, multiple choice test is may be the best option. Other types of assessment tasks may be the most appropriate at other times.
Maximize the Multiple Choice Test
If multiple choice does seem the preferred way to assess, then there are some simple ways to maximize its effectiveness. Think about these the next time you design and administer your multiple choice test.
• Make questions more about “thinking” than “memorization.” It’s easy to get into the habit of using multiple choice tests to simply see if students read or understood the material. Memorizing information lays a good foundation, but a good assessment also tests students’ ability to apply it.
• Attach standards to questions. If the courses you teach have a set of standards that you are supposed to measure in each student, then design each question on your test specifically to target at least one of those standards. This way, you can see which standards students are falling short on or succeeding in.
• Give students what they haven’t seen before. Don’t resort to giving students the same questions on study guides, quizzes, and tests. Instead, give them new information, new readings, new situations, and use these to test their ability to apply knowledge. These questions should be similar to tasks and examples completed during study, but avoid asking students to regurgitate an answer they already discovered on a previous task.
• Share exams with other teachers. Your group of students is unique, and what you do with them is unique. Add validity to your assessments having many different classes take them. Then you can compare classes’ scores and teaching methods.
• Go over results with students and peers. Avoid just updating grades and moving on. Like any assessment, give students a chance to see where their strengths and weaknesses are. Then use the review of the test as a spring board to further goal- setting and reflection.
Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching suggests, “A stem that presents a problem that requires application of course principles, analysis of a problem, or evaluation of alternatives is focused on higher-order thinking and thus tests students’ ability to do such thinking.” This can be constructed by producing questions that require the combination of different portions of learned information to produce an original result, or by providing answer options that require a “high level of discrimination” to determine the correct response.
Since we want to make sure our tests – whether multiple choice or otherwise – are best answering our “How do we know they learned?” question, then we need to make sure that we maximize each assessment’s design. So before you give that next big test, think about what you actually want to get out of it and consider some of the above practices.
This resource from Vanderbilt actually has some really great advice on the specific design and phrasing stems and alternatives should have. I definitely recommend you check it out!
Brame, C., (2013) Writing good multiple choice test questions. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/writing-good-multiple-choice-test-questions/.