Multiple Choice

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Recommended: Multiple choice examinations

Multiple choice examinations are often seen by students as an easier test than a constructed response test. This is usually because it seems as though there is less studying needed to be done before a student feels as if he or she could successfully pick the most correct answer from four or five options. For teachers, marking multiple choice examinations are easier to grade as they only need to match it up to a master key. However, despite both of those points, the questions that do not get as much attention are "What makes a good multiple choice examination?" and "Are they effective at gauging a student's understanding?". These questions are what we will be investigating.

To find out if multiple choice examinations, we must first look at what makes a well constructed test. Generally, a multiple choice has one or several of the three main question types: incomplete statement questions, in which a blank is left in a phrase and the student must select the response which makes the statement correct; direct questions, where there is only one right answer to a directly posed question; and best answer questions, where several of the answers have varying levels of correctness but only one is the most correct. In a study done by Asim, Ekuri, and Eni (2013), they tested what the level of competency of pre service teachers was for constructing multiple choice questions. They rated the questions based on whether the questions were constructed correctly within one of the three question types, and that the choices followed the main rules for acceptable responses: the choice is unambiguous, with no red herring clues or double negatives. They found that teacher competency for incomplete statement and direct questions were acceptable, but tha...

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Kiong Lau, P., Lau, S., Hong, K., & Usop, H. (2011). Guessing, Partial Knowledge, and Misconceptions in Multiple-Choice Tests. Journal Of Educational Technology & Society, 14(4), 99-110.

Douglas, M., Wilson, J., & Ennis, S. (2012). Multiple-choice question tests: a convenient, flexible and effective learning tool? A case study. Innovations In Education & Teaching International, 49(2), 111-121. doi:10.1080/14703297.2012.677596

Hee-Sun, L., Liu, O., & Linn, M. C. (2011). Validating Measurement of Knowledge Integration in Science Using Multiple-Choice and Explanation Items. Applied Measurement In Education, 24(2), 115-136. doi:10.1080/08957347.2011.554604

Marsh, E. J., Lozito, J. P., Umanath, S., Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2012). Using verification feedback to correct errors made on a multiple-choice test. Memory, 20(6), 645-653. doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.684882

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