What are Multiple Choice Questions?
Multiple choice items consist of a stem and a set of options. The stem is the beginning part of the item that presents the item as a problem to be solved, a question asked of the respondent, or an incomplete statement to be completed, as well as any other relevant information. The options are the possible answers that the examiner can choose from, with the correct answer called the key and the incorrect answers called distractors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_choice).
Tips for setting up and fine-tuning
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a Moodle quiz
- Create all your questions in well organised question bank categories. You can then choose to randomly select questions from the categories, so that each student will get different questions (form formative test only).
- Allow enough time for students to think properly about each question before answering. MCQs take roughly 1 minute to complete, and more complicated ones take 1.5 minutes.
- Provide precise instructions about how long the quiz should take, how many questions it contains, whether negative marking will be applied and the type of questions being asked (Use this Moodle quiz description template).
- Once the quiz is run, go to the results and look at the Navigation > Course > Quiz name > Results > Statistics removing or reworking any Statistics. Remove or rework any questions that are unreliable - these are the ones that score less than 0 under Discrimination index or Discrimination efficiency columns.
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- Put the detail in the scenario and/or question and keep the answers short
- Ensure the stem is not tricky or misleading
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(Based upon Case and Swanson 2002, p. 38)
Aknowledgments
Thank you to Ros Duhs from UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT) who provided much of the advice on this page.
References
Case S.M. and Swanson D.B. (2002) Constructing written test questions for the basic and clinical sciences. Philadelphia, PA: National Board of Medical Examiners. http://www.nbme.org/PDF/ItemWriting_2003/2003IWGwhole.pdf
Collins, J. (n.d.) Writing Multiple Choice Questions for Continuing Medical Education Activities and Self-Assessment Modules. http://www.arrs.org/uploadedFiles/ARRS/Publications/writingMultipleChoiceHandout.pdf