Earlier this week in American Studies, we spent a little bit of class time discussing multiple-choice tests. Essentially, we answered the question: Are multiple-choice tests an EFFECTIVE way of assessing one's knowledge? Multiple-choice tests are commonly used in school, but also for standardized achievement tests (like the ACT and SAT). Basically, many who work in the field of education believe that multiple-choice tests are great ways to test kids' knowledge.
On the other hand, I think that nowadays multiple-choice tests are horrible ways of testing kids' knowledge. I appreciate the whole idea, which is essentially to help kids by giving them all possible answer options so that they know that the answer is right in front of them somewhere and do not have to answer questions in their own words. But nowadays, educators have taken these tests to the next level. They put in so many tricks, awkwardly-worded questions, as well as the awful, horrible "mark all that apply" questions. I hope that these teachers realize that they are defeating the whole purpose of multiple-choice tests! They aren't even testing kids' knowledge; they are simply thinking of sly ways to trick the students! I thought that there was only supposed to be ONE answer, but these stupid "mark all that apply" questions break that rule! And the bad thing is that teachers don't even give partial credit for the "mark all that apply" questions - you either get it all right or all wrong.
I do believe that it is fair to put some trick questions on tests. But I think that they should be put on the short response/show your work section of the test so that kids can get partial credit. I am a big fan of partial credit (If you understand the problem and get it partially right, you should get some credit!), and the problem with multiple-choice tests is that they deny students the ability to receive partial credit.
What do you think?
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Although I agree that multiple choice tests have many drawbacks, they have benefits too. For example, they take less time to answer, because there is no writing required. My math teacher always gives us tests with 20 short answer questions, and it is very difficult to answer them all, because of all the writing involved. However, because for a multiple choice question you only have to fill in a bubble, tests can have two or three times as many questions. You point out that multiple choice tests are unfair to students because they cannot receive partial credit. However, there is also the possibility that the format can be beneficial. If you have no idea or no time to answer a short answer question, its almost assured that you will get a zero anyway. But if you don't know the answer to a multiple choice question, there is a possibility that you will get the problem correct. Although I agree that multiple choice tests are not as effective at testing students knowledge as short answer questions, they have their benefits too.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to consider is how multiple choice tests benefit teachers. Teachers simply need to scan the test through the scantron machine (I don't know what it is called) and boom, the test is graded. It would be interesting to know whether teachers choose to use multiple choice tests because they are easy to grade or because they believe it is the most "effective" testing method. In the past I personally have had teachers who admitted they use multiple choice tests because they can be conveniently graded.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to second Claire's argument here. I believe that the one of the main reasons teachers use these multiple choice tests is that they are easy for them to grade. It is convenient to give kids a multiple choice test, and accepted as a decent was to test their knowledge. As for the standardized test I think those are Scantron simply as an measure to ensure efficiency. Think of how long and how many people it would take to grade all 1.5 million PSAT tests taken every year, and and then add all the other standardized tests and you have got a lot a papers to be graded. I also believe that as soon as a more efficient was of grade comes about, it will be adopted extremely quickly.
ReplyDeleteDrew I don't quite follow your logic. 1) Do multiple choice questions really take less time for math, of all subjects, because there's no writing in the answer? What about the writing/work you have to do to get the answer? 2) why would you want 20-30 more questions on a math test, or any test, just because it's scantron? Are we really saved enough time by the bubble feature that 20-30 questions are more affordable? And, more importantly, is more better?
ReplyDeleteI believe that multiple choice is a terrible way of testing everything except standardized tests. There is no partial credit so the assessment of knowledge is less nuanced. Also, the mark all that apply is just a way of giving a student no points when they know 80% of an answer.
ReplyDeleteFor standardized testing however, I think that objective scoring is the only fair way judge a student. As we examined in class, the SAT writing section is a farce because the criteria for grading is so esoteric. That problem originates from the use of more than one grader.
A good teacher will be consistent in grading a free response test so it can be fairer than multiple choice.