The Multiple Choice Controversy

Multiple choice exams have always been a popular form of student evaluation amongst teachers. This type of traditional assessment continues to thrive today as it has in the past. Unfortunately, this proves teachers are afraid of change and are not willing to take risks in order to improve student learning and ensure success. Educators are not assimilating other forms of assessment (alternative assessments, video tape, oral presentations, journals, portfolios, peer evaluations, and group projects etc.) into their teaching curriculum's. Advocates in favor of traditional assessment believe multiple choice exams are one of the best ways to measure student learning. I doubt those thousands upon thousands of intelligent students who constantly struggle just passing these exams would agree.

One of the main issues with multiple choice exams are the ways it’s structured/presented. Some teachers just don’t know how to create proper multiple choice exam questions or answer choices. The questions or “stems” should always use an incomplete statement or a direct question, include as much information as possible, and incorporate an introductory statement. They shouldn’t include more than one problem or even negative statements. Sometimes teachers will even try to trick their students by including unrelated clues to the correct answer (VERY BAD). The writing options or answers are another aspect of multiple choice exams that should include 3-4 well planned options as well as distracters (similar to the answers but without biases) but should never include words such as “always,” “never,” and “all.” Teachers also need to realize an “all of the above” answer should be used sparingly. The problem is that educators sometimes trick students and that isn’t the point of teaching. Teachers remember: only use “none of the above” when there is an absolute correct answer that isn’t present within the writing options!

Traditional assessment or multiple choice exams are not a fair way to grade any student. Other forms of assessment can be more valuable to a students learning. There are many issues surrounding multiple choice exams that people (especially educators) are not aware of. This is the year 2009, not the year 1909. Let’s try to move on from the classical multiple choice exams and administer new and better forms of assessment!

Reference:

Writing Multiple-Choice Test Items
by: Jerard Kehoe

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