Assessment

I would argue that every multiple-choice test I have ever taken was the least effective assessment method for the material covered. Most of the formative and summative tests I took in high school and during my undergraduate studies were multiple-choice and the issue with this method is that it encourages memorization of information rather than critical thinking. It also does not allow for the visibility of student thinking, which is a key principle of modern assessments (Binkley, Erstad, Herman, Raizen, Ripley, Miler-Ricci & Rumble, 2011). The concept of visibility refers to the ability to see the student’s understanding and how they’re conceptualizing the problem and arriving at their solution. This cannot be seen from multiple-choice responses. The student may have guessed the correct answer or, even if they knew the correct response, there is no demonstration of their understanding beyond memory recall. While the ability to recall facts and information is important, learning the concepts and more abstract ideas that the facts represent is arguably more important because those underlying principles can be applied in multiple ways and across different contexts. Memorizing facts is “learning” information in a vacuum and that information is not valuable unless I know how to apply it correctly. For example, knowing the dates and other facts regarding landmark events in history is not as meaningful as understanding what social, economical, and political factors created the environment prompting the events to occur. That deeper understanding goes beyond knowing facts and can be applied in other areas, such as informing policies and laws so that negative historical events do not repeat themselves. 

Alternative assessment methods to multiple-choice tests include other paper-and-pencil methods, such as essays and reports. Even though these are traditional assessments, they are more effective than multiple-choice because they are open-ended and involve complex thought, such as explanation, providing details, and offering relevant examples. Other assessment methods utilizing technology have the potential to be even more engaging because they require creativity. Having students create a video, for example, is not just fun but you really have to understand the material before you can create anything from it. Learning objectives should be set by the instructor and made clear to the student so that their creation does demonstrate their understanding of the important concepts. The focus of a video assessment is less about memorizing the correct answer and more about explanation and reasoning skills (Binkley, Erstad, Herman, Raizen, Ripley, Miler-Ricci & Rumble, 2011).

Reference

Binkley, M., Erstad, O., Herman, J., Raizen, S., Ripley, M., Miler-Ricci, M., & Rumble, M. (2011). Defining twenty-first century skills. In P. Griffin, B. McGraw, & E. Care (Eds.), Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (pp. 17–66). New York, NY: Springer. (PDF)