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New Reasons to Dislike Multiple-Choice Testing
January 23, 2013 | Terry Heick
The multiple-choice problem is becoming a bit of an issue.
While it has been derided by educators for decades as incapable of truly measuring understanding, and while performance on such exams can be noticeably improved simply by learning a few tricks, the multiple choice question may have a larger, less obvious flaw that disrupts the tone of learning itself. This is a tone that is becoming increasingly important in the 21st century as access to information increases, as the updating of information happens more naturally, and as blended and mobile learning environments become more common.
Tone
Learning depends on a rather eccentric mix of procedural and declarative knowledge -- on the process as much as the end product. Students are often as confused by teacher instructions or activity workflow as they are by the content itself. Keep a tally of how often student questions are related to the logistics of the assignment versus the content itself. You might be surprised.
The process of mastering mathematics, for example, is served as much by a consistent process of practice as it is the practice itself. If learning is the result of acquiring "new data" and organically folding it into "old data," how students come to that new data is incredibly important. They are best served by a short, taut the line between student and content-to-be-mastered. Even the transparency and apparent relevance of a classroom activity factor into the "value" of a learning experience as much as how cleanly that activity aligns with an academic standard.
This all emphasizes the value of uncertainty in learning.
Uncertainty
There is nothing wrong with being uncertain.
In fact, it has often been said that the more a person learns, the less they're ever sure of. This shouldn't mean that students always lack confidence, but rather the opposite: that all stakeholders in education clarify that learning is a messy process chock-full of uncertainty, iteration and revision, and that anything tidy stemming from this untidy process should be questioned.
This shines a spotlight on multiple-choice questions, and not purely as an attack on them. There have been enough studies done to show that a well-written multiple-choice question actually measures understanding fairly well. But in the 21st century, change is happening at an incredible pace. Access to information is disrupting traditional processes and their related mechanisms.
Printed texts have gone from being the final word to simply one step in an endless chain of making information public. Texts are now merged with moving images, hyperlinked, designed to be absorbed into social media habits, and endlessly fluid. From an essay to a blog post, an annotated YouTube video to a STEAM-based video game, a tweet to digital poetry, the seeking and sharing of ideas is an elegant kind of chaos.
As a result, media are more dynamic than ever before -- and thus a bit "uncertain" themselves.
Beyond Either/Or
But the real issue here isn't one of assessment design as much as it is looking at the overall tone of learning.
In the 21st century, networks are a kind of collective wisdom -- or at least they can be. How you connect with others automatically informs how you'll connect with their ideas. If digital interdependence doesn't completely change both sociology and education over the next 25 years, we might need to go back and see what happened.
So let us look at multiple-choice questions in this light. More than anything else, when a multiple-choice question is given to a student in hopes of measuring how well he or she understands something, it manufacturers the illusion of right and wrong, a binary condition that ignores the endlessly fluid nature of information.
It alters the tone of learning, shifting it away from a constant process of reconciling old thinking with new data, and toward something of a pitch-and-fetch scenario. One question, four answers, and only one of them is right.
Just point to the right answer.
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Comments (28)
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Perhaps the solution is to
Perhaps the solution is to build a museum to store (I was tempted to use the word arcane but won't ;)) educational curiosities so that centuries from now archeologists can muse over what they were used for, where they came from and why they persisted for the period of time that they did.
Elementary Educator
To lump all multiple choice test into one category is like stating that there is only black and white questions and answers in the world today. That is not always true; many of the multiple choice tests given by the state have answer choices that no matter how the student works the problem, their answer will be there. It comes down to, are the students reading the questions carefully to understand what the problem is asking them to do. I look at multiple choice tests as one measurement of what my students can do, along with classroom participation, teacher observation, and written assignments. How does a multiple choice test prepare a student for the real world? Well, there are many ways to answer this question. Depending on how you answer will decide an outcome that can be good, bad, or indifferent, in any given situation. Sounds like a multiple choice question to me.
There is a big difference
There is a big difference between human decision making (have a peek at the behavioural economics lit) and deploying an apparatus that masquerades as a measure of something (long bow there). And re the example of an intersection. Lots of other choices. Leave the car, hail a cab, catch a bus, etc etc etc. Whereas in a M/C test - there is only x options.
I know its fashionable to
I know its fashionable to bash standardized testing, but many of the responses seem a bit over the top, Even the one from someone whose corporate decision-making experience was limited to brainstorming and tweaking, not choosing from options. Must be from engineering, obviously not finance Or marketing or accounting.
No matter. Unlike many of the respondents, I drive without a GPS in my car. When I get to an intersection where I'm not sure what to do, I have to make a choice about going left, right, or straight. Multiple choice.
Teaching kids to do what machines are good at
A horse and buggy was handy a long time ago, so too the ability to recall bits and pieces of information with or without the aid of our "helpful" unconscious. Not any more. Machines do recall. Machines find stuff. Machines make connections. Teaching kids to do things that machines are good at is galactically stupid. Education needs a war of independence. Independence from managerial bean-counting "Kings" who urgently need to be put aboard the B Ark.
Before becoming an educator I
Before becoming an educator I worked in the corporate world. I can assure you that decisions in this realm are rarely about "selecting the best option from a short list." In the corporate world (and in the rest of the world too) problem solving involves brainstorming many, many solutions, then taking that long list and tweaking, combining, expanding, morphing, and further developing solutions until you find one that works for the moment--knowing that you will continuously review and revise this solution over time. This process does not, in any way, mirror a multiple choice test. Bury them, I say!
No one has convinced me of
No one has convinced me of the usefulness of mutiple choice questions. If you want to know if a student knows a piece of information (whether simple or complex) or knows how to execute a certain process why not just have the student give you the information without giving him/her the answer. If they know the material they will be able to tell you/work the problem. If they don't they won't. If we are talking relatively low level/recall give them a fill in the blank question. If we want midlevel comprehension material give hem a short answer question. If we want complex information give them essay questions or, as in math, have them work the problem. Particularly in math, either they know it and their answer is right or they don't and their answer is wrong. Giving the kids the answer provides an easy way out. If kids have mastery of the material (isn't mastery the level we teach to) they will be able to tell you what you want to know. I still see multiple choice as the easy way out for the teacher because it is so easy to grade. There is also a hidden problem with multiple choice tests. Too many people do not teach for mastery, which results in a vague understanding by the kids. Thus multiple choice tests become an easy way out for everyone.
With any existing educational
With any existing educational practice it is always useful to ask when was it invented? for what purpose? what were its acknowledged limitations then? It does not make for pretty reading given the current usage rates. Formal education is brilliant at keeping old/dead education practices alive which is in part why computer use in schools/universities has been so mind numbingly silly (old wine in new bottles made sense in the 1980's. It does not any more. The old/dead practices need to be called what they are, zombie education. If you are interested in a longer argument, see 2012 here: http://www.chrisbigum.com/cj/FinishedWriting
I think the points made are
I think the points made are fair, however, its possible to creatively subvert these types of questions...I did some work on using MCQ's as learning objects to stimulate critical thinking using them as a lesson starting point. Asking kids to work out which answers are wrong and more importantly, why, is a good starting point!
Let's praise multiple choice
Let's praise multiple choice tests lest others bury it. They're real world. Choices, and picking the best answer, not quite the same as the right answer. When any executive with half a brain convenes with his/her closest advisors, its about selecting the best option from a short list. Multiple choice!