multiple choice exams
One of the potential pitfalls of multiple choice questions is that students can confuse familiarity with mastery of a subject. In Vet Tech, students are expected to have detailed knowledge of the various areas, but many fall short of that expectation. If they have some general, non-specific knowledge but don't know the details, they may look at multiple choice answers and pick one that seems familiar to them. As we all know, for a well-written multiple choice question, all of the answers (or most) should look "reasonable", but only one is truly correct. I used to teach chemistry at several universities (as does my husband), and we have both observed the same thing with multiple choice questions. Student performance is often surprisingly poor on these questions. I am obligated to use the multiple choice format for portions of all my exams because that is the format they will see for the Vet Tech Board Exams, but I am often disappointed with the result.
This is an important point Bruce. We have to consider the educational levels of our students when selecting the most appropriate assessment measures.
I agree that recognition is a poor substitute for mastery. I, however teach at the begining of our program so I really am just expecting a lower level of learning than the instructors at the middle and end of the program. I have had sucess when making tests for those sections by folling up a multiple choice question with a "explain your answer" section.
Alison,
I teach Anatomy & Physiology at a Career College. I find that the students do better on the mutiple choice quizes & exams. My students take a quiz & exam each week over the chapters we lecture on for that week. I have tried giving them other types of tests, but they do very poorly on them.The students tell me that if they don't have the answers there to choose from it makes it more difficult for them.I have continued to give them the multiple choice test because their state certification test is also multiple choice.I also agree with Dr. Melissa Read, in the real world we need to be good at recall to do our jobs well.
Bridgett
Good points Alison. Recognition is indeed easier than recall and may not completely test knowledge. In the real world, we need to be good at recall to do our jobs well.
