Using assessment to support higher level learning: the multiple choice item development assignment

A participatory learning approach to biochemistry using student authored and evaluated multiple‐choice questions

“…In particular, PeerWise combines a ''writing to learn'' activity [22], student-contributed questions [23], and a web-based peer review system [24][25][26] that allows students to be actively engaged in their learning. Nicol [27] also showed that student-contributed questions, in an approach used by Fellenz [23], fulfilled all seven principles of good feedback. PeerWise not only fulfills these principles [8] but also allows students to become aware and take control of their learning and become better metalearners [28].…”

“…Students can be guided to use Bloom's hierarchy in both writing and evaluating questions [23,30], but we felt that this would be too prescriptive and unnecessarily complicate the activity, possibly resulting in reduced participation. Nevertheless, this is something that may be useful to explore in a second semester biochemistry course, or other biomedical subject, with students who have previously used PeerWise.…”

“…One potential issue with student-contributed questions is that students with poor English language skills may be disadvantaged [23]. These students may not be able to structure grammatically correct questions that can be clearly understood by their peers.…”

Student-Generated Questions to Assess Learning in an Online Orientation to Pharmacy Course

“…2,17 A body of research indicates that student perceptions of efficacy are not necessarily tied to increased effort or learning outcome, so tying analysis to student perceptions has its limitations. 31 Nonetheless, many students in this study and in other similar studies reported that this strategy positively impacted their learning, and the mechanism through which this improved learning could occur is supported in cognitive science.…”

“…3 Frequent updating of the questions requires much instructor time and effort and often results in inconsistent quality. 3,4 Multiple-choice assessment approaches are often criticized for not facilitating active learning 2,4 because they provide students with a list of choices rather than requiring them to actively identify the correct choice and explain or justify why it is best, as they would be required to do in real life.…”