fun multiple choice questions

fun multiple choice questions

Creating Engaging Multiple Choice Questions: A Scholar’s Guide

1. Introduction to Multiple Choice Questions

Students benefit from understanding what they need to know and understanding learning intentions. MCQs also serve as an ongoing technique for high stakes tests or a comprehensive overview of learning after a unit is finished. With a broad base of sample questions, students can engage in supporting one another, too. It encourages peer teaching. It may be worrying to some that there is an imbalance between creating and answering questions at the full extent, such as a scenario, could inspire this learning.

Generating engaging multiple choice questions (MCQs) is a learned skill. The ability to think in a manner that is simultaneously creative, tortuous, and multi-dimensional can support question creation. True, false, and maybe partial credit at uses a different balance structure; the other methods of question diversity can also be useful. Automatically removing the simplest questions and pooling future questions can ensure a steady supply of natural knowledge level questions. Encourage students to reflect on question state: fix, improve, evaluate, disseminate, and create their own.

Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are a popular means of assessment. This is because they can be assessed quickly and automatically. By allowing for variation and context, MCQs can still test higher learning skills. In a situation where different classes are taking different exams, the greater speed in grading is a decision-making advantage.

2. Writing Effective Multiple Choice Questions

Reliability is the extent to which a test measures the same way each time it is administered. Remember that a reliable test is very consistent in what it measures. Reliability can be a problem at times, particularly if it is a class-based exam or test. Other reliable tests might flood the test with too many questions. There are five points to consider while writing good multiple choice questions. The most difficult step in answering a multiple choice question is often not arriving at the answer but determining whether any of the choices given actually represent the correct answer.

Preparing thought-provoking multiple choice questions that take into account the context and complexity of student learning is a challenge to every scholar-teacher. An effective question is both valid and reliable and ideally should be able to capture a specific learning level. Validity indicates how well an item measures what it is designed to measure. For example, a math problem measuring understanding of decimals that contains more strategy than actual math skill is not valid. Instead, it measures test-taking skills. To write a valid mathematical question, you would want to ensure that the student actually understands the math behind the operations, not merely how to do long division. Additionally, you would want the problem to measure that the student understands when the mathematical operations are necessary, rather than just involving the operations.

3. Strategies for Distractor Development

The general process of constructing high-quality multiple-choice questions, regardless of which question construction strategies are ultimately used, includes a final step where the question and proposed responses are reviewed, revised, and then edited. We encourage instructors who are new to question construction to refer to the question revision and editing procedures outlined in the accompanying paper “Creating Quality Test Questions: A Scholar’s Best Practices.” With the help of research by Was that published in the Journal of Educational Measurement in 1992 and Haladyna and Rodriguez in 1985, four common strategies with potential to increase the discrimination of a multiple-choice question are presented. These strategies can be used as a way to help instructors start the question editing process and/or may be considered as higher order question construction strategies while constructing multiple-choice questions.

While the strategies outlined above tend to focus on improving the quality of the correct answer, distractor development is another critical process in the construction of high-quality multiple-choice questions. It is often with the help of the students, either directly through answering incorrect multiple-choice questions or over the course of the time while they are preparing for examinations, that we come to realize that certain academic misconceptions are difficult to overcome. It is thus important for test constructors to understand what influences an individual’s ability to identify the correct response and decrease the probability that the incorrect response is selected. Four common issues related to student response processing are described below.

4. Best Practices in Multiple Choice Question Design

There are a large number of specific types of questions that can be asked in addition to the standard form of a formula followed by five factual statements. We can start with a multiple response question that consists of a formula followed by a set of five statements of which any number can be the correct answer. This should be closely followed by multiple complete-the-calculations questions in which the student determines one or two parameters of a modulation relationship given a set of input parameters followed by five statements that might be the correct value. Multiple completion questions test a student’s ability to know a wide range of formulas. A good textbook will list a range of formulas, including those that the student will not have to master on the exam. These will be the formulas used to scale the individual exams to a common standard.

First, do a representative sample of questions predict competent performance on representative tests of mastery? Second, how confidently do you know what each individual student knows, according to the artifacts of your formal evaluation results and whatever other documentation you have from your progress through the material? How consistently can you predict eventual online performance based on performance in a supervision setting?

In this section, I provide a streamlined set of best practices in multiple choice question design. First, by way of background, the cost of writing each question is high because of the inevitability of using an expert in the discipline to both generate the answer keys and to ensure a high standard of alignment between the questions and the follow-up course material. Given the high cost, a critical step is to carefully assess how questions will be used in evaluation in order to ensure high efficiency: how will results be used to improve student achievement? To do this, consider the following possibilities.

5. Innovative Approaches to Enhancing Multiple Choice Questions

8. Attractive and interesting alternative. The attractive alternative is one that is meaningful but not the best correct answer. A body of research supports the choice of attraction alternatives that are real, meaningful, and distinct from the correct answer. Dress up the attractive alternative so that it reflects a lot of effort or content that is somewhat successful.

7. Using names. Providing a proper name in the stem, but not in all the alternatives, can result in a successful manipulation.

6. Plot and expository literature. Providing elements of a story setup can provide stimulus for the above suggestions.

5. Consequences. Explicit consequences for each alternative can help focus the testee on the consequences for the action, as opposed to the alternative being right or wrong. Ensure that the consequences are realistic and not ridiculous.

4. Professional and ethical standards.

3. Quoting or paraphrasing from the newspaper, periodical, or journal. This can better focus the theme or topic for the question.

2. Realistic Problem or Research Environment. Position the stem for the alternative question in a colleague-to-colleague framework or start the stem with the student being the instructor problem solving in a work environment.

1. Realism. Provide a real-life scenario in the stem that motivates the student to think about the subject matter and the question. Realistic application can enhance long-term retention of material. Alternatives can reflect realistic options for the situation. This helps students have a better understanding of the topic and assist in their analysis; it is more similar to a question they may face in the real world. It is also motivational for the student to understand how learning the material relates to their world.

The following suggestions may be effectively applied to enhance either the stem or the alternatives, but they are not comprehensive.