Multiple-choice questions: Tips for optimizing assessment in-seat and online.

Abstract

Multiple-choice questions are frequently used in college classrooms as part of student assessment. While multiple-choice assessments (compared to other formats such as constructed response) seem to be the preferred method of testing by instructors and students, their effectiveness in assessing comprehension in college courses is sometimes called into question. Research has shown that there are ways to optimize the construction and use of multiple-choice testing to benefit college classroom instruction and assessment, student learning, and performance, and to more efficiently utilize instructor's time and energy. This teacher-ready research review provides an overview of the research on utilizing multiple-choice questions as well as some tips on using, writing, and administering multiple-choice questions during assessments. We also summarize the benefits and potential issues with using multiple-choice questions including concerns about cheating, ways to detect and deter cheating, and testing issues and strategies unique to online formats. We hope that this short review will be helpful to instructors as they prepare courses and assessments and further encourage the use of empirical data in pedagogy related decision-making.

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“…Plagiarismdetection services (such as Turnitin, VeriCite, PlagScan, Unicheck and UNPLAG) are available to check for similarity indexes or plagiarism by comparing documents with previously submitted documents that exist somewhere on a repository on the web (Khare and Lam 2008;Moodle 2019;Waghid and Davids 2019). To discourage students from cheating, plagiarising or making use of proxies, ghost writers or contract writers, a combination of plagiarismdetection measures should be put in place at educational institutions, especially in an online environment (Fisher et al 2016;Waghid and Davids 2019;Xu, Kauer, and Tupy 2016). A ghost writer is usually a freelance person hired to write other people's assignments or assessments on their behalf, at a fee, resulting in students mispresenting it as their own work (Fisher et al 2016;Waghid and Davids 2019).…”

“…To verify the identity of the student, an honesty declaration (to assist with keystroke recognition), could form part of the biometric student profile. An honesty declaration is an attempt to discourage a student from cheating (Xu et al 2016) and could statistically lower the level of dishonesty, as ethical behaviour is explained to the student to reduce misunderstanding (Khare and Lam 2008). In distance education, a biometrical profile is very important to verify a student's identity, specifically for high-stakes final examinations.…”

“…Higher education institutions should also consider monitoring students' IP addresses to validate authorship (Watwood et al 2009). Lockdown browsers can be used to limit students' access to other websites, documents, emails and other resources, but this is not feasible for non-venue-based students, because they are resourceful and may use a variety of devices at home (Fisher et al 2016;Jones et al 2008;Xu et al 2016). In an online environment, these methods could be combined with the use of a camera to provide more surety.…”

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“…Đặc biệt, lần đầu tiên trong lịch sử đào tạo lái xe ô tô Việt Nam và có lẽ là của cả thế giới, mỗi bài sát hạch lý thuyết còn có 1 câu hỏi tính "điểm liệt" được chọn ngẫu nhiên từ "60 câu hỏi về tình huống mất an toàn giao thông nghiêm trọng" trong bộ đề, chỉ cần trả lời sai câu này dù đúng tất cả những câu còn lại cũng bị trượt [3]. Cách tính "điểm liệt" này hoàn toàn không có trong lý thuyết trắc nghiệm khách quan [4]- [6].…”

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“…They succinctly summarize lots of research and they focus on the practical implications -on what teachers should do, based on the research. There's one that brings together all the research on multiple choice exam questions in an organized, accessible way (Xu, Kauer, and Tupy 2016). There's another that reviews the research that's relevant to accurately interpreting end-of-course rating results (Boysen 2016).…”