Title: Advantages and Limitations of Multiple-Choice Items Post by: Tanya on July 13, 2007, 12:23:21 AM Advantages and Limitations of Multiple-Choice Items
Multiple-choice test items are not a panacea. They have advantages and limitations just as any other type of test item. Teachers need to be aware of these characteristics in order to use multiple-choice items effectively. Advantages Versatility. Multiple-choice test items are appropriate for use in many different subject-matter areas, and can be used to measure a great variety of educational objectives. They are adaptable to various levels of learning outcomes, from simple recall of knowledge to more complex levels, such as the student’s ability to: Analyze phenomena Apply principles to new situations Comprehend concepts and principles Discriminate between fact and opinion Interpret cause-and-effect relationships Interpret charts and graphs Judge the relevance of information Make inferences from given data Solve problems The difficulty of multiple-choice items can be controlled by changing the alternatives, since the more homogeneous the alternatives, the finer the distinction the students must make in order to identify the correct answer. Multiple-choice items are amenable to item analysis, which enables the teacher to improve the item by replacing distractors that are not functioning properly. In addition, the distractors chosen by the student may be used to diagnose misconceptions of the student or weaknesses in the teacher’s instruction. Validity. In general, it takes much longer to respond to an essay test question than it does to respond to a multiple-choice test item, since the composing and recording of an essay answer is such a slow process. A student is therefore able to answer many multiple-choice items in the time it would take to answer a single essay question. This feature enables the teacher using multiple-choice items to test a broader sample of course content in a given amount of testing time. Consequently, the test scores will likely be more representative of the students’ overall achievement in the course. Reliability. Well-written multiple-choice test items compare favorably with other test item types on the issue of reliability. They are less susceptible to guessing than are true-false test items, and therefore capable of producing more reliable scores. Their scoring is more clear-cut than short- answer test item scoring because there are no misspelled or partial answers to deal with. Since multiple-choice items are objectively scored, they are not affected by scorer inconsistencies as are essay questions, and they are essentially immune to the influence of bluffing and writing ability factors, both of which can lower the reliability of essay test scores. Efficiency. Multiple-choice items are amenable to rapid scoring, which is often done by scoring machines. This expedites the reporting of test results to the student so that any follow-up clarification of instruction may be done before the course has proceeded much further. Essay questions, on the other hand, must be graded manually, one at a time. Limitations Versatility. Since the student selects a response from a list of alternatives rather than supplying or constructing a response, multiple-choice test items are not adaptable to measuring certain learning outcomes, such as the student’s ability to: Articulate explanations Display thought processes Furnish information Organize personal thoughts Perform a specific task Produce original ideas Provide examples Such learning outcomes are better measured by short answer or essay questions, or by performance tests. Reliability. Although they are less susceptible to guessing than are true false-test items, multiple-choice items are still affected to a certain extent. This guessing factor reduces the reliability of multiple-choice item scores somewhat, but increasing the number of items on the test offsets this reduction in reliability. The following table illustrates this principle. |