Delphi module

14.4.5
Multiple-choice questions

Activity 23

Think back to any experience you have had of multiple-choice questions, either as tutor or student. Can you think of any disadvantages of using them in your current language teaching?

In section 14.1.3, we contrasted discrete-point testing with integrative testing. Probably the best known discrete-point test is the multiple-choice test. Over the years, this has been a popular method of testing reading and, to a lesser extent, listening. It does have distinct advantages over other test types, but it also has a number of drawbacks which you ought to be aware of before deciding whether to use it.

1) Advantages:

Multiple-choice tests can be easily administered and can be done quickly by students.
They can be easily marked; with large numbers, they can be machine-read.
Since they usually include several possible answers, they reduce the opportunity for guesswork of simple true/false questions.
Mark schemes are very straightforward. They convey to students the impression of an entirely fair approach to marking, one more open to public scrutiny than that typically adopted for FL essays.

2) Disadvantages:

It is much more difficult than you might think to write clear and unambiguous test items (cf 14.1.2).
They are generally unpopular with learners as their purpose seems to be to catch people out, to entice them into choosing the wrong option (tellingly, the wrong options are known as 'distractors').
It is thought they might not always be a good measure of understanding, as the distractors can induce learners to choose an option they might otherwise not have thought of.
They restrict what one can test: it is especially difficult to come up with credible distractors for certain uses of language (eg tenses).
They only test recognition knowledge: being able, for example, to identify grammar items in a multiple-choice test does not mean the student can use grammar in context.
To be successful, tests need to be trialled so that those which fail to discriminate between candidates can be removed or amended. (For a detailed discussion of trialling procedures, see Bailey, 1998: 132-40.)

Owing to the laborious nature of such trialling, many think multiple-choice tests are only viable if they can be used as 'closed exams' and therefore re-used in subsequent years. This probably excludes their use in terminal or end-of-year exams but would mean they could be used as progress tests in mid-semester. However, this would have the negative washback effect of not allowing them to be used for feedback purposes in class.

A significant area in which multiple-choice questions are widely used is computer aided assessment (Atkinson, 2002). Typically, in both listening and reading, students are asked to choose an option from a menu and, if it is not a test situation, they can receive instant feedback. There are clear limitations here as well, however, since extended reading tasks are difficult to assess on a computer owing to the limitations of processing long texts on screen.