According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), US reading and math scores have recently dropped. This decline is believed to be the result of the school closings that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The drop likely contributed to the increase in pressure educators are feeling to teach in a way that leads to higher test…

The evidence is mounting regarding the guidance to employ more three-option multiple-choice items. From theoretical analyses, empirical results, and practical considerations, such items are of equal or higher quality than four- or five-option items, and more items can be administered to improve content coverage. This study looks at 58 tests,…

The Ordinary National Educational Test (O-NET), the national examination in Thailand, plays as a high-stakes test at an upper secondary school level as it can be used as a tool for several purposes in education such as gatekeepers for the university entry and measures for the teaching quality evaluation. English, out of the five core subjects in…

One major issue with large-scale assessments is that the respondents might give no responses to many items, resulting in less accurate estimations of both assessed abilities and item parameters. This report studies how the types of items affect the item-level nonresponse rates and how different methods of treating item-level nonresponses have an…

A new item type was developed, incorporating features of "ill-structured" problems in a multiple-choice format. The problems are similar to previously developed scientific thinking tasks in requiring the examinee to go beyond the information provided; they resemble a variant of the logical reasoning item type, but demand somewhat more structuring…

This paper is prompted by the Joint Statement issued from the Education Summit, and addresses the need to change testing policy from reliance on standardized, multiple-choice testing to the use of more authentic methods of assessing educational performance and progress. The governors are warned against increasing the use of standardized tests and…

The viewpoint is expressed that adding to test reliability by either selecting a more homogeneous set of items, restricting the range of item difficulty as closely as possible to the most efficient level, or increasing the number of items will not add to test validity and that there is considerable danger that efforts to increase reliability may…

Use of multiple-choice achievement tests is critiqued. Multiple-choice tests are considered heavily weighted toward aptitude and ill-suited to assessment of thinking. Psychometric methods for the development of alternatives to this inadequate form of testing achievement are discussed. (TJH)

In an exploration of customizing the Major Field Achievement Test in Political Science (MFATPS), developed by the Educational Testing Service, a questionnaire was sent to the heads of political science and joint departments which offer a bachelor's degree in Political Science. A total of 1,017 departments were surveyed in January 1990; 293…

These studies in test adequacy focus on two problems: procedures for estimating reliability, and techniques for identifying ineffective distractors. Fourteen papers are presented on recent advances in measuring achievement (a response to Molenaar); "an extension of the Dirichlet-multinomial model that allows true score and guessing to be…

The purpose of this study was to compare certain characteristics of multiple-choice (MC) and complex multiple-choice (CMC) achievement tests designed to measure knowledge in medical-surgical nursing. Each of 268 junior and senior nursing students from four midwestern schools responded to one of four test forms. MC items were developed by…

A study compared college students' performance on complex multiple-choice tests with scores on multiple true-false clusters. Researchers concluded that the multiple-choice tests did not accurately measure students' knowledge and that cueing and guessing led to grade inflation. (PP)

ALTHOUGH MOST EDUCATORS AGREE THAT EXAMINATIONS PERFORM AN IMPORTANT FUNCTION IN APPRAISING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, SOME CLAIM THAT MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS DEGENERATE INTO A GAME OF "BEAT THE MONKEY," I.E., ANSWERING MORE THAN 25 PERCENT OF THE ITEMS CORRECTLY, THE RATING EVEN A MONKEY COULD BE EXPECTED TO RECEIVE. SAMPLE STUDIES REVEAL THAT THE…

The author surveys literature and practice, primarily in Great Britain and the United States, about multiple-choice testing, comments on criticisms, and defends the state of the art. Varous item types, item writing, test instructions and scoring formulas, item analysis, and test construction are discussed. An extensive bibliography is appended.…