Toolbox: Tips for writing multiple choice questions

Abstract

Have you ever watched a room full of students taking a multiple choice exam? I have, many times. I have watched students as they grumble, look up at the ceiling, groan, and squirm in their seats. I have even seen some cry. Multiple choice (MC) questions – student hate them and faculty are not comfortable writing them. Students thought my questions were too difficult, vague, or confusing. Of course, I felt differently about those multiple choice questions. I thought the questions were clear, concise, and fairly met every objective I asked the students to know. What could have possibly gone wrong? How did the students and I have such different opinions regarding those exam questions? It was probably because the questions were not written as well as they could have been. I had a lot to learn about writing MC exam questions.Many faculty have little or no training in writing exam questions, yet are expected to assess students in courses using MC questions. Multiple choice question writing requires time, patience, and experience. It is also more difficult than it appears to write really good MC questions. In this Toolbox, I would like to review some tips on writing MC exam questions.Though developing well-written MC questions can be difficult, MC questions are very useful, such as in assessing student knowledge in large classes where grading individual exams can be time-consuming. Additionally, as long as students do not receive a copy of the exam, questions can be placed in a test bank to be used again. They are easily written to assess lower level thinking skills such as knowledge or comprehension. Higher thinking skills, such as application, synthesis, and evaluation can be assessed; however, it is just more difficult to write such questions. If students have a limited time in which to complete an exam, allow approximately one minute per MC question. All questions should be mapped back to the course objectives. Additionally, all lecture or course objectives should be tested, otherwise, why have them?Despite some of the limitations, MC questions are easy to grade (can be computer graded), can avoid the guessing factor of true/false questions, and are reliable and versatile.Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to write the questions, review them, and perhaps have someone you work with review them or even take the exam. With some practice, you will be on your way to writing better multiple choice exam questions!Examples of poorly written questions are provided to illustrate the problems you should attempt to avoid.