Negatively-Marked MCQ Assessments That Reward Partial Knowledge Do Not Introduce Gender Bias Yet Increase Student Performance and Satisfaction and Reduce Anxiety

Abstract

Multiple-choice question (MCQ) examinations are increasingly used as the assessment method of theoretical knowledge in large class-size modules in many life science degrees. MCQ-tests can be used to objectively measure factual knowledge, ability and high-level learning outcomes, but may also introduce gender bias in performance dependent on topic, instruction, scoring and difficulty. The ‘Single Answer’ (SA) test is often used in which students choose one correct answer, in which they are unable to demonstrate partial knowledge. Negatively marking eliminates the chance element of guessing but may be considered unfair. Elimination testing (ET) is an alternative form of MCQ, which discriminates between all levels of knowledge, while rewarding demonstration of partial knowledge. Comparisons of performance and gender bias in negatively marked SA and ET tests have not yet been performed in the life sciences. Our results show that life science students were significantly advantaged by answering the MCQ test in elimination format compared to single answer format under negative marking conditions by rewarding partial knowledge of topics. Importantly, we found no significant difference in performance between genders in either cohort for either MCQ test under negative marking conditions. Surveys showed that students generally preferred ET-style MCQ testing over SA-style testing. Students reported feeling more relaxed taking ET MCQ and more stressed when sitting SA tests, while disagreeing with being distracted by thinking about best tactics for scoring high. Students agreed ET testing improved their critical thinking skills. We conclude that appropriately-designed MCQ tests do not systematically discriminate between genders. We recommend careful consideration in choosing the type of MCQ test, and propose to apply negative scoring conditions to each test type to avoid the introduction of gender bias. The student experience could be improved through the incorporation of the elimination answering methods in MCQ tests via rewarding partial and full knowledge.

Modeling Partial Knowledge on Multiple‐Choice Items Using Elimination Testing

“…If students are not fully familiar with the testing procedure, it will be less likely for them to make use of the advantages of elimination testing. Yet, previous studies have shown that despite elimination testing initially being new and more complex to them, students still preferred it to the conventional instructions (e.g., Bond et al., ; Bradbard et al., ; Bush, ; Coombs et al., ; Vanderoost et al., ). Therefore, more acquaintance and practice for students may be necessary when this new testing procedure is being implemented, so that students can get more accustomed to it to demonstrate their partial knowledge when they are in doubt about the single‐best answers.…”

“…() compared the expected answering patterns under correction for guessing and elimination testing, and showed that risk aversion has a bigger impact for test‐takers with partial knowledge, but elimination testing helps to reduce the effect of risk aversion in comparison to correction for guessing. As females are normally considered to be more risk‐averse, empirical studies (Bond et al., ; Bush, ; Vanderoost et al., ) showed that elimination testing reduced the difference between female and male students in terms of the amount of omission responses and test performance, and therefore is less disadvantageous to risk‐averse test‐takers.…”

Lessons learned from performance of students of Pharmacology in self coded surprise test with negative marking.

“…Thus, corrected score presents the true score irrespective of the conventional exam or an exam with negative marking. The Scores with negative marking are lower as compared to the non-negative marking scheme [18,19].…”

Knowledge transfer in health care informatics education: quality, efficiency and measurability

“…Az ér-téke tovább csökkenthető, ha a vizsgarendszer nem enged továbblépni egy válasz nélkül hagyott kérésről. Ez a megoldás esetünkben azért lenne használható, mert a jelenlegi pontozási módszer szerint nincsenek "bün-tetőpontok" beépítve a hibás válaszokhoz, egyébként használata nem javasolt [14].…”