{"id":7572,"date":"2024-04-21T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=7572"},"modified":"2024-04-14T10:18:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T15:18:37","slug":"improving-multiple-choice-questions-a-thought-provoking-pause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/improving-multiple-choice-questions-a-thought-provoking-pause\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Multiple-Choice Questions: A Thought-Provoking Pause"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many teachers carry strong ambivalence about multiple-choice questions<\/strong> (handy abbreviation: MCQs).<\/p>\n

On the one hand, MCQs offer the benefits of simplicity — not a small feature in our complex lives.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, they seem altogether too cheap and surface-y to promote our goal: long-term, flexible, and useful knowledge.<\/p>\n

If only well-designed MCQs could offer us the good stuff (“simplicty”) without the bad stuff (“merely surface learning”)…<\/p>\n

But wait just a moment…<\/p>\n

The Story Before the Story<\/h2>\n

As I’ve written in the past<\/a>, we do have some easy strategies to improve the quality of MCQs.<\/p>\n

One easy approach: make the alternative answers plausible<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That is:\u00a0When I ask my students “Who is Laertes?”, the potential MCQ answers could be:<\/p>\n

a) Ophelia’s brother, a foil for Hamlet<\/p>\n

b) Bugs Bunny’s alter ego<\/p>\n

c) My\u00a0cat<\/p>\n

d) The star of an upcoming Marvel movie<\/p>\n

Or the answers could be<\/p>\n

a)\u00a0Ophelia’s brother, a foil for Hamlet<\/p>\n

b) Macbeth’s partner, whom he later murders<\/p>\n

c) Othello’s advisor, who betrays him<\/p>\n

d) Prince Hal’s companion, famous for appetite<\/p>\n

Obviously, the first list doesn’t require the students to think hard. (My cat’s name is “Pippin,” thank you very much.) So, they won’t learn much from that MCQ.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>However, the second list provides\u00a0several\u00a0<\/em>plausible answers<\/em>. To get this question right, students have to think about<\/strong> various Shakespearean plays.<\/p>\n

Because “memory is the residue of thought,” and this MCQ requires more thought, it will almost certainly result in more memory (a.k.a. “learning”).<\/p>\n

With this example to guide us, are there other ways we might improve MCQs?<\/p>\n

Take a Moment<\/h2>\n

A recent study<\/a> explores another handy way to encourage our students to think more.<\/p>\n

Step 1: show the MCQ — but not the potential answers<\/em>;<\/p>\n

Step 2: pause just a bit;<\/p>\n

Step 3: okay, NOW show the answers.<\/p>\n

In theory, students just might use that strategic pause to see if they can think of the answer on their own.<\/p>\n

That is:<\/p>\n

If I ask, “Who is Laertes?”<\/p>\n

My students might think “Gosh, that’s from some Shakespeare something. Could be Othello<\/em>…or, wait, I’m thinking Hamlet<\/em>. That’s right…he fought against Hamlet in that swordfight. Something about a ‘palpable hit.’ “<\/p>\n

When — after the pause — the\u00a0students see the answers I’m offering, they can confirm the answer they started with. (Or, check themselves against the other possibilities.)<\/p>\n

In other words, this strategy offers yet another way to\u00a0prompt students to think<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Clearly this idea makes sense in theory; does it work in practice?<\/p>\n

From Esperanto to Swahili<\/h2>\n

The research team tested this question with word pairs: either Dutch-Esperanto, or Dutch-Swahili.<\/p>\n

In addition to all the research techniques we like to see, this team added two not-altogether-common steps.<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>: they ran four<\/em> different experiments — not just one. In this way, they were able to explore nuances and details to build up a more-complete-than-usual picture.<\/p>\n

Second:<\/strong> they tested the students’ memory of those word pairs\u00a0several days later.<\/em><\/p>\n

Researchers often assess “learning” by retesting after several minutes, or an hour. Because this team waited a few days, they’re giving us a more plausible reason to believe that students did (or did not) “learn.”<\/p>\n

So, what did the researchers and their extra-admirable methods find?<\/p>\n

Conclusion #1<\/em>: the\u00a0wait just a bit<\/em> strategy worked.<\/p>\n

That is: students remembered more word pairs when they had to wait to see the possible answers than when they didn’t.<\/p>\n

Conclusion #2<\/em>: the benefit came from\u00a0effortful thinking<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Students who used the pause to try to recall the word pair remembered more pairs than those who just waited for the potential answers to show up.<\/p>\n

Conclusion #3<\/em>: the “make the alternative answers plausible” strategy still works.<\/p>\n

This team re-tested the strategy explained above. Sure enough, making the distractors plausible prompts students think harder<\/em>. And, therefore, they remember more.<\/p>\n

It’s almost hard to believe that such a simple strategy could help … but these four studies offer good support for that conclusion.<\/p>\n

TL;DR<\/h2>\n

If you want to have your students learn more from multiple-choice questions, build in a short pause between the question and the possible answers.<\/p>\n

And, encourage your students to\u00a0think<\/em> during that pause: what will the right answer be?<\/p>\n

The more thinking, the more learning.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

van den Broek, G. S., Gerritsen, S. L., Oomen, I. T., Velthoven, E., van Boxtel, F. H., Kester, L., & van Gog, T. (2023). Optimizing multiple-choice questions for retrieval practice: Delayed display of answer alternatives enhances vocabulary learning.\u00a0Journal of Educational Psychology<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many teachers carry strong ambivalence about multiple-choice questions (handy abbreviation: MCQs). On the one hand, MCQs offer the benefits of simplicity — not a small feature in our complex lives. On the other hand, they seem altogether too cheap and surface-y to promote our goal: long-term, flexible, and useful knowledge. If only well-designed MCQs could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[219],"class_list":["post-7572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-multiple-choice-question"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7572"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7579,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7572\/revisions\/7579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}