multiple choice questions with answers

multiple choice questions with answers

Effective Strategies for Creating Multiple Choice Questions with Answers

1. Introduction to Multiple Choice Questions

In addition, reliability studies have also been carried out that aim to investigate how goodness-of-item indices in a set of tests are affected by such features as the number of alternatives, the item difficulty, guessing, length of item, etc. However, one of the main disadvantages of multiple-choice tests is that students who are not familiar with the strategies of choosing correct responses from distractors can answer guided by other sources than their knowledge in the subject content. Also, the scoring of such items by credit for right answers and penalties for incorrect answers is criticized by researchers who claim that students who have some knowledge in a topic can be negatively affected by such practices. They believe that partial credit must be given to students who provide an argument in a non-ideal but correct manner. Critics also argue that the use of distractors will benefit from well-organized approaches based on theory on misconceptions and fundamental principles to enable the creation of plausible but incorrect choices.

In general, multiple-choice tests have been found to be reliable and are widely used in educational evaluation. They are very suitable for administering large tests with minimum time. Their objectivity has been much improved by the introduction and use of specialized software. The simple yes/no grading of dichotomous items and their ability to filter out student fluctuations in scores that are caused by other sources than variance in the subject content have typically made them desirable in many educational assessments. Their usefulness is considered with respect to statistical analysis procedures such as tests of significant differences among groups, comparison of means, and item analysis procedures (quantifying item characteristics such as difficulty and discrimination indices).

2. Key Components of a Well-Designed Multiple Choice Question

Guidelines for writing multiple choice questions are that these questions should be free from hints, clear, concise, presented in a relaxed manner, use common terminology congruent with the learning objectives, be entirely correct or wholly incorrect, incorporate response options that are homogeneous in content and interchangeable, have response options determined independently, utilize neutral language that does not negatively or positively bias the topic, not contain grammatical errors in the response options, and include unique or the same phrases within each response option. Avoid grammatical clues, constructing lengthy questions, writing the option that includes the most content, using negative modifiers, and making the response options in logical order.

Creating effective multiple choice questions takes time and effort in order to yield valid results. Key components of a well-designed question include having a clear and concise question stem, an appropriate difficulty level, and well-constructed response options that are free from clues and are homogeneous in content. Additional factors to consider include ensuring that one complete and correct answer is included on the response list, identifying and categorizing common errors that students make, and utilizing available resources to develop high-quality questions. Using distractors and having students complete a post-test questionnaire will also allow for validation and refinement of your multiple choice questions. This activity will result in a bank of questions with answers available for each question.

3. Writing Effective Distractors

Tests are boring. So are quizzes, homework assignments, reviews, and daily lesson questions. Sorting through countless papers to grade also qualifies. Nobody ever got a Nobel Prize for asking questions for multiple-choice tests, but it is an art form all by itself. Disciplined, succinct inquiries focused on our learning goals shine a glaringly bright spotlight on the stated objectives. They collect everyone’s attention and motivate critique and self-reflection opportunities. They don’t waste important time. Sound creation of test items can more effectively ignite student inquisitiveness, challenging learners and providing opportunity for evidence that individuals understand the point of it all.

Questions and tests can be boring. However, we are considering multiple-choice questions and suggest practical techniques to increase variety in student answer choices by focusing attention on the design of effective distractors. We discuss application of common item writing standard practices to distractor writing considerations. Easy to follow rules and recommendations for crafting successful multiple-choice questions that can foster creative conflicts with valid reasons for choosing incorrect options are plentiful in the literature. Learner choice ranges from “Select the best answer” or “Select the most appropriate response” to “Select all of the correct answers” are guidelines to write questions that are complex, interesting, and will direct learner attention to the learning outcomes of interest while revealing gaps in knowledge.

4. Best Practices for Answer Choices

The best answer choices lack rodent appeal. Specifically, they are factual, plausible, and mutually exclusive. Be sure to keep the difficult answer choices, often correct ones, that test elaborate content knowledge. A student with excellent content knowledge may know both the theoretical answer as well as a bizarre schematic deviation. This is more important in the practice of medicine or performing technologically-assisted procedures. Finally, use positive language in the stem, avoid negative language in the answer choices, and keep answer choices homogenous in grammatical structure, length, and complexity.

There are a few best practices for constructing effective answer choices to accompany your multiple choice questions. Because a strength of multiple choice questions is their ability to assess an entire array of content (i.e., from recall to synthesis), it is important to include alternative answer choices. An effective answer sheet for a multiple choice question should include: a) the correct answer, plus two more correct answer choices, and b) a ‘distractor’ answer choice, which is one that students who failed to read the question, didn’t really understand the content very well, or guessed, may be most likely to select. A common theme in creating the perfect multiple choice question, then, is to construct distractors to be as ‘alluring’ as the correct answer choices. The best answer choice should not be obviously correct nor obviously wrong.

5. Strategies for Ensuring Clarity and Fairness

It is important to keep the question stem clear and concise and for the clarity of the stem not to be compromised by placing it in bold or italic type. It is also important for there to be balanced spaces between and around the answer items and to start the response options with words that are grammatically parallel to the stem for all the alternatives. For a True cannot be followed by a false as it breaks with the rule of parallelism. When a negative response is the correct answer, the word not has to be placed so that it is clearly seen in the response because, as a smaller word, it can sometimes be overlooked. In the case of T/F questions that are partially accomplished by the options not being accompanied by words such as all, only, most, or some. Overall, the clarity of the T/F questions is enhanced when they are expressed in basic, direct, and active language; are positively phrased; and only have one meaning.

Although the most common multiple-choice questions are those that require a single selection from five potential answers, this section refers to those that require a binary response. This is to say, it makes reference to those questions that are either right or wrong; true or false; yes or no; or positive or negative. One of the features of these questions is that it requires either one of the choices from two values. Constructing these levels of questions includes both skills and strategies and requires the expert teacher to combine careful thought with accumulated experience and practice.