“Multiple-Choice Items should be sequenced in order of difficulty with the easiest ones placed first”. Does it really affect performance?

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to find out if order of arrangement of multiple-choice test items significantly affects students’ performance. The study made use of a descriptive research design. The target population for the study was all education students of Valley View University, Ghana from the Oyibi, Takoradi and Kumasi study Centres. The accessible population for the study was all Sandwich education students of Valley View University who registered for the Measurement and Evaluation course for the 2022/2023 academic year and sat for the end of semester examination at Oyibi study centre. The census procedure was used to select the sample for the study. Five sets of 25 multiple-choice test items in Measurement and Evaluation were administered to the 183 students as their end of semester examination. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and three-way ANOVA. The results indicated that order of arrangement of multiple-choice test items has no effect on performance and that the order of arrangement of multiple-choice test items has no effect on performance due to gender and study centre. It therefore recommended that using varying order of arrangement of multiple-choice items should be encouraged as a way of checking examination malpractice.