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D. Designing Multiple-Choice Test Items
D. Designing Multiple-Choice Test Items
Multiple-choice items, which may appear to be the simplest kind of item to construct, are
extremely difficult to design correctly. Hoghes (2003, pp. 76 – 78) cautions against a number
of weaknesses of multiple – choice items :
A standard multiple-choice test item consists of two basic parts: a problem (stem) and
a list of suggested solutions (alternatives). The stem may be in the form of either a question
or an incomplete statement, and the list of alternatives contains one correct or best alternative
(answer) and a number of incorrect or inferior alternatives (distractors).
The purpose of the distractors is to appear as plausible solutions to the problem for
those students who have not achieved the objective being measured by the test item.
Conversely, the distractors must appear as implausible solutions for those students who have
achieved the objective. Only the answer should appear plausible to these students.
Since there will be occasions when multiple-choice items are appropriate, consider
the following four guidelines for designing multiple-choice items for both classroom based
and large-scale situations (adapted from Gronlund, 1998, pp. 60-75 and J.D. Brown, 1996,
pp. 54-57)
1. Design each item to measure a specific objective
Example:
Where did George go after party last night?
a. yes, he did
b. Because he was tired
c. To Elaine’s place for another party
d. Around eleven o’clock.
The specific objective being tested here is comprehension of wh-questions. Distractor (a)
is designed to ascertain that the student knows the difference between an answer to a wh-
question and a yes/no question. Ditractors (b) and (d), as well as the key item (c) test
comprehension of the meaning of where as opposed to why and when. The objective has
been directly addressed.
You might argue that the first two sentence of this item give it some authenticity and
accomplish a bit of schema setting. But if you simply want a student to identify the type
of medical professional who deals with eyesight issues, those sentences are superfluous.
Moreover, by lengthening the stem, you have introduced a potentially confounding
lexical item, deteriorate, that could distract the student unnecessarily.
Another rule of succinctness is to remove needless redundancy from your option. In the
following item, which where is repeated in all three options. It should be placed in the
stem to keep the item as succinct as possible.
In designing multiple-choice test items there are 3 item indices to measure the items
in a test in order to accept, discard or revise items, there are:
That response distribution shows you two ways to improve the items. The first is distractor D has
no utility because cannot atrract anyone. The second distractor E just attract 2 students from
high-ability to choose this incorrect one
The table below will serve as guide in interpreting the results of the item analysis.
In interpreting the results, we have to consider not only whether how easy or how
difficult the item is, but also its ability to discriminate students who know and those who do not
know the answer. In other words, both the p values and D values are taken into consideration.
The decision rule is to retain or accept the items that are not so easy or too difficult, and at the