Multiple-Choice Test Items: What Are Textbook Authors Telling Teachers?

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to (a) Look at what teachers are being told about multiple-choice test item construction by introductory educational psychology textbook authors and (b) to evaluate the quality of test items that preservice teachers may be exposed to if their university instructors use unedited multiple-choice items provided by the publishers of their classroom text. A comprehensive survey of educational psychology texts was completed to identify the textbook authors’ recommended guidelines for teachers to follow when writing multiple-choice test items. Next, a reduced set of 12 guidelines was identified on the basis of the frequency of author recommendations. These 12 guidelines were used to evaluate 60 multiple-choice items (N = 1,080) that were randomly selected from 18 different instructor guides to introductory educational psychology texts. The results indicated that approximately 60% of the items violated one or more guidelines.