Especially if all distractors are plausible
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 5:11 am
Let’s take a look at one of the biggest reviews of the topic. Rodriguez, M. C. (2005) gathered and analysed data from lots of other studies from an 80-year period up to 2005. They found that assessments that use 3 option questions are as good as or better than assessments with 4 option questions because:
There’s no change in overall assessment reliability phone numbers russia or discrimination. Similar discrimination means the assessments are as good at differentiating between learners who know the content well and those who don’t. Similar reliability means that learners with similar levels of knowledge get similar scores.
Less time is needed to prepare two plausible distractors than three distractors. That means increased efficiency for question-writers.
More 3-choice questions can be administered per unit of time. That means more questions can be fit into an assessment, improving content coverage.
Questions with four or more choices may expose additional aspects of the content to students, potentially giving clues away to other questions, .
There are plenty of other researchers in agreement if you fancy diving deeper into the topic, such as:
Vyas, R. (2008): “Our review of the literature suggests that MCQs [multiple choice questions] with 3 options provide a similar quality of test as that with 4- or 5-option MCQs. We suggest that MCQs with 3 options should be preferred.
Schneid S. D. et al. (2014): “The results from this study provide a cautious indication to health professions educators that using three-option MCQs does not threaten validity and may strengthen it by allowing additional MCQs to be tested in a fixed amount of testing time with no deleterious effect on the reliability of the test scores.”
There’s no change in overall assessment reliability phone numbers russia or discrimination. Similar discrimination means the assessments are as good at differentiating between learners who know the content well and those who don’t. Similar reliability means that learners with similar levels of knowledge get similar scores.
Less time is needed to prepare two plausible distractors than three distractors. That means increased efficiency for question-writers.
More 3-choice questions can be administered per unit of time. That means more questions can be fit into an assessment, improving content coverage.
Questions with four or more choices may expose additional aspects of the content to students, potentially giving clues away to other questions, .
There are plenty of other researchers in agreement if you fancy diving deeper into the topic, such as:
Vyas, R. (2008): “Our review of the literature suggests that MCQs [multiple choice questions] with 3 options provide a similar quality of test as that with 4- or 5-option MCQs. We suggest that MCQs with 3 options should be preferred.
Schneid S. D. et al. (2014): “The results from this study provide a cautious indication to health professions educators that using three-option MCQs does not threaten validity and may strengthen it by allowing additional MCQs to be tested in a fixed amount of testing time with no deleterious effect on the reliability of the test scores.”