Can Multiple-Choice Testing Induce Desirable Difficulties? Evidence from the Laboratory and the Classroom

Abstract

The term desirable difficulties (Bjork, 1994) refers to conditions of learning that, though often appearing to cause difficulties for the learner and to slow down the process of acquisition, actually improve long- term retention and transfer. one known desirable difficulty is testing (as compared with restudy), although typically it is tests that clearly involve retrieval—such as free and cued recall tests—that are thought to induce these learning benefits and not multiplechoice tests. nonetheless, multiple- choice testing is ubiquitous in educational settings and many other high- stakes situations. in this article, we discuss research, in both the laboratory and the classroom, exploring whether multiple- choice testing can also be fashioned to promote the type of retrieval processes known to improve learning, and we speculate about the necessary properties that multiple- choice questions must possess, as well as the metacognitive strategy students need to use in answering such questions, to achieve this goal.

Student‐Generated Pre‐Exam Questions is an Effective Tool for Participatory Learning: A Case Study from Ecology of Waterborne Pathogens Course

“…Furthermore, follow‐up studies showed that it was the mental effort per se involved in the retrieval of the information during the intervention (intermediate test) that accounted for much of the gains (Endres and Renkl ). Bjork and others () agree and highlight the need for a certain level of “desirable difficulty” for the intermediate testing to result in increased recall (Bjork and others ). Therefore, it is reasonable to hypothesize that benefits of the testing may be obtained from any activity requiring high mental effort.…”

“…Exams and quizzes are stress‐ and anxiety‐inducing activities (Nguyen and McDaniel ) and references therein), and benefits of test‐enhanced learning maybe gender‐biased (Kromann and others ). Furthermore, poorly constructed multiple‐choice pre‐exams with implausible alternative answers do not result in meaningful learning gains (Bjork and others ). Frequent quizzes may also be seen by students as an attempt to assert (or even usurp) authority by the instructor, and thus undermine development of the student‐centered participatory classroom.…”

“…For information that is not complex (that is, memorization and recall of word pairs in English and in a foreign language), learning gains are most improved with a repeated retrieval practice (Karpicke and Roediger ). For complex information, where the ability to recall certain information requires memorization (or thorough understanding) of the context, retrieval has to modify the information in memory, rather than storing it unchanged (Bjork and others ). Furthermore, it involves either an elaboration of the memorized material (Mcdaniel and Fisher ) or requires a certain level of “desirable difficulty” (a condition that initially slows down knowledge acquisition, but improves long‐term retention and transfer of knowledge), which can be achieved when the recall activities are reasonably complicated (Bjork and others ).…”

“…For complex information, where the ability to recall certain information requires memorization (or thorough understanding) of the context, retrieval has to modify the information in memory, rather than storing it unchanged (Bjork and others ). Furthermore, it involves either an elaboration of the memorized material (Mcdaniel and Fisher ) or requires a certain level of “desirable difficulty” (a condition that initially slows down knowledge acquisition, but improves long‐term retention and transfer of knowledge), which can be achieved when the recall activities are reasonably complicated (Bjork and others ). Therefore, the aim of this study was to test whether student's generation of multiple‐choice questions could result in robust learning gains that are similar to those observed in studies of the testing effect and without the undesirable effects of anxiety and biases observed in previous studies (Kromann and others ; Bjork and others ; Nguyen and McDaniel ) This activity required not only a simple recall of information, but a thorough understanding of the tested material and additional information.…”

fmCASES National Examination as a Pretest in a Family Medicine Clerkship

“…[4][5] General education concepts show that practice tests can contribute to improved performance on standardized tests via comprehension calibration, study plan development, and application of metacognitive strategy. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] fmCASES are online case-based modules originally created to meet the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine's National Clerkship Curriculum Objectives, 14 and were found to "foster self-directed and independent study" and "emphasize and model clinical problem-solving." 15 During the time of this initiative, 146 medical schools in the United States utilized fmCASES to teach or assess student learners.…”