What Good Are Multiple-Choice Tests?

In this study in Journal of Psychological Science (summarized by John Horton in The Education Gadfly), Genna Angello, Elizabeth Bjork, Robert Bjork, and Jeri Little (University of California/Los Angeles) found that multiple-choice tests can provide valid and helpful information on students’ knowledge and skills if test items push them to retrieve knowledge and do some higher-order thinking rather than just recognize correct answers. At their best, say the authors, wrong answers on multiple-choice tests “trigger the retrieval processes that foster test-induced learning and deter test-induced forgetting” – and are better than cued-recall (fill-in-the-blank) test items.

“Multiple-Choice Tests Exonerated, At Least on Some of the Charges: Forgetting Test-Induced Learning and Avoiding Test-Induced Forgetting” by Genna Angello, Elizabeth Bjork, Robert Bjork, and Jeri Little in Journal of Psychological Science, October 2012 (Vol. 23, #11, p. 1337-1344), no e-link available, spotted in The Education Gadfly, Jan. 17, 2013 (Vol. 13, #3); Little can be reached at jerilittle@gmail.com. 

From the Marshall Memo #469