Students love multiple choice questions. I typically have several types of questions on my
chemistry tests. If I tell my students that there will be only, say, fifteen multiple choice questions on the upcoming test, I will almost always have several students frown and ask for more.
Sometimes, I’m tempted to give in and just give a multiple choice test like these students want. After all, multiple choice questions are the easiest kind of test question to grade, and I don’t have any assistants to grade papers for me.*** But I don’t give in. The reason? Because students almost always perform more poorly on multiple choice questions than they do on “harder” question types.
Why?
Some students will tell me that they like multiple choice questions because the right answer is already on the paper, and it’s easier to find the answer in a list than it is to figure the answer out. This might actually be part of the reason that students do so poorly on multiple choice tests: They don’t think that they have to figure anything out, and they expect multiple choice questions to be like this:
These charged particles are normally found inside the nucleus of atoms.
A) birds
B) cheeseburgers
C) oranges
D) orangutans
E) protons
… where the right answer is immediately obvious, even if you don’t know a darned thing about chemistry or the nuclear model of the atom. Instead, they get questions more like this:
These charged particles are normally found inside the nucleus of an atom.
A) borons
B) electrons
C) neutrons
D) photons
E) protons
This is still an easy question, but some students will miss it. These same students are able to draw a picture of and describe the basic details of the nuclear model of the atom in a later (not multiple choice) question on the same test! My conclusion is that the student misses the multiple choice question because he simply doesn’t expect to have to think about it.
I see the same thing with multiple choice questions that involve a calculation. If the same problem is presented as a multiple choice question and as a problem where they have to write their answer in a blank, the students will miss the multiple choice problem more often. They will try to do the multiple choice problem directly on their calculators (despite scratch paper being available), while they will usually write down the steps of the problem where they have to put their own answer in a blank.
In summary, if any students are reading this – don’t ask for more multiple choice questions! They’re not really “easier” than any other kind of question, and they’re more likely to bring your grade down!
***Well, except for this assistant. But you don’t want her grading your paper!
Multiple choice tests is also bad in other ways.
By taking away the writing part you don’t get any training at all in how to actually express your knowledge and show that you can actually have a deeper understanding. In my opinion, this is just as important as the knowledge itself and the force that drives discovery and development.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that multiple choice tests do not allow students to really express their knowledge or understanding of a subject.
Admittedly, there are times when I think I’d rather not know how well students understand the material!