Multiple Choice Questions

Widely used

SAT Reasoning Test

 

TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language

 

US Universities

 

Pros of Multiple Choice Questions

 

High test reliability

 

Test bias reduction

·       Teacher-student bias

·       Language proficiency bias

o     Reduces the advantage of native language speakers to foreign language speakers.

o     Makes it impossible to waffle (blather, write nonsense, chatter or small talk)

 

Less time to administer

 

 

Ease of administration and electronic grading

 

 

 

 

Cons of Multiple Choice Questions

 

Student’s do not receive credit for partial knowledge.

 

It is a tough task for the test maker to create meaningful questions that test critical thinking.

 

Guessing: by random 20% of the questions are answered correctly.

 

 

Examples

Bad example: In the theories of culture and the self we use the buzzwords: culture, internet culture, internationalization, and:

a)  fractionalizations

b)  rationalization

c)   Electronic

d)  Fusion

e)   cultural diversity

 

Good example: Theories of culture and the self

a)  are ambiguous

b)  can never be tested

c)   have been identified as invalid

d)  are not relevant to international ePublishing

e)   help to investigate potential problems of translation.

 

What I do

I only use the central material I presented in class. Hereby the material is posted on the www is a source we all share.

 

I reflect upon this material and ask myself how I can construct a good question.

 

To improve my test-making ability I used empirical computer analysis.

·       For my large exams, I compute a statistical analysis that indicates the percentage of student is the upper quartile that answered the question correctly and the percentage of the lowest quartile.

·       This helps me to learn making better questions.

 

Good question

Top 25%   95% correct

25%

25%

Bottom 25%   10% correct

 

Bad questions o not differentiate.

Top 25%   50% correct

25%

25%

Bottom 25%   50% correct

 

Terrible, counterproductive question.

Top 25%   40% correct

25%

25%

Bottom 25%   60% correct

 


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Disclaimer: The documents linked to other sources on the WWW, others than http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/Schneider2/ and its subdirectories, do not necessarily express the views of Texas Tech University, Université Paris X, or Dr. Schneider. @Copyright 2007 Dr. Andreas Schneider