It’s obvious why schools, workplaces, MOOCs, and many places that test knowledge use multiple-choice questions.
It’s not because they’re great for students. It is better to ask them to explain and demonstrate their experience, with as little prompting as possible.
With multiple options, a student can get lucky… or they can use some simple tricks to fix it.
If you choose ‘All of the above’ when it’s an option and the answer with the most words when it’s not, I wonder how many exams you can pass without reading the questions…
But they have a clear advantage:
Ease of marking.
There is no ambiguity or subtlety. Either they did it right or they didn’t.
It makes it easy for humans to rate… and trivial for machines to do so.
So whether ideal or not, sometimes you have to settle for them.
Here’s how to make them less terrible:
no false answers
Many tests include obviously wrong answers.
The kind no one would pick unless they’re guessing at random.
If the test is about the history of law, this is the question that asks: “What is the Magna Carta?” and option (B) says a soup recipe.
Or one of those ‘workplace behavior’ courses, where you’re asked if punching someone in the stomach is an example of respectable professional behavior.
Get rid of these and replace them with something that tests your understanding.
I like to have the wrong answers evenly distributed. I don’t know if few or most of the students will answer a question correctly… but my goal is that all wrong answers have the same statistics.
For example, if 70% choose the correct answer for (A), I want 10% to choose (B), 10% to choose (C), and 10% to choose (D).
If computers grade the exam, this should be trivial to track. If hardly anyone chooses a given wrong answer, then that answer is worthless. Cut it out and replace it.
Not ‘all of the above’
If there are five options and the first two are correct, the student can stop thinking. They might glance at others for a quick sanity check, but they already know the answer.
I like to have students consider each answer on its own merits, you know, make them think.
This makes ‘none of the above’ a better option, but I still don’t like it. Although that’s more for personal reasons. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe because it seems lazy to me.
Specify multiple answers (but not how many)
If a question has more than one correct answer, it is best to let students know.
Make it clear, even to those who are stressed, rushed, and distracted.
Put it in bold in the question, something like “choose ALL that apply”.
But don’t say “choose the two correct answers”.
Why not?
As before, I like to have students consider each answer on its own merits. If they know that only two of the five answers are correct, they can ignore other options without even thinking about them.
without ambiguity
This can make or break the test.
Ambiguous questions or answers are horrible. Someone who doesn’t understand the material may be puzzled… but your expert students should certainly know which answer(s) is correct.
If they find themselves thinking, ‘It depends on…’ or ‘Technically, all/none of these are possible…’ then you are no longer testing the experience.
There is no easy answer to this.
If one person writes the questions and answers, have others on your team review them. Find experts outside of your team to test your proof.
What is clear to the author is not always clear to everyone.
