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An Empirical Comparison of Three-and Four-Choice Items and Tests: Susceptibility to Testwiseness and Internal Consistency Reliability
Abstract
Theoretical and test simulation work reveals that under the knowledge-or-randomguessing assumption, three-option item tests are at least as good as four-option item tests in terms of item discrimination and internal consistency. Of concern, however, is the finding that multiple-choice items may be susceptible to testwiseness, thereby contradicting the random-guessing assumption. Both item-level and test-level characteristics were examined for items included in a high stakes school-leaving mathematics examination. As expected, the influence of testwiseness is lessened when three-option items are used instead of four-option items. Differences and nondifferences between the psychometric characteristics of the three-option and four-option test forms tend to agree with the findings of earlier studies: Tests consisting of three-option items are at least equivalent to tests composed of four options in terms of internal consistency score reliability, difficulty is inversely related to the number of options, and the findings for item discrimination are not conclusive.
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Multiple-choice assessments can hamper critical thinking.
“Problems with such assessments range from their potential to falsely indicate student understanding to the possibilities that they hamper critical thinking and exhibit bias against certain groups of students (Towns and Robinson, 1993; Scouller, 1998; Rogers and Harley, 1999; Paxton, 2000; Dufresne et al., 2002; Zimmerman and Williams, 2003; Stanger-Hall, 2012).”
From Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently) (2014) · cites this paper as Rogers and Harley, 1999
Multiple-choice assessments have the potential to falsely indicate student understanding.
“Problems with such assessments range from their potential to falsely indicate student understanding to the possibilities that they hamper critical thinking and exhibit bias against certain groups of students (Towns and Robinson, 1993; Scouller, 1998; Rogers and Harley, 1999; Paxton, 2000; Dufresne et al., 2002; Zimmerman and Williams, 2003; Stanger-Hall, 2012).”
From Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently) (2014) · cites this paper as Rogers and Harley, 1999
Multiple-choice assessments can exhibit bias against certain groups of students.
“Problems with such assessments range from their potential to falsely indicate student understanding to the possibilities that they hamper critical thinking and exhibit bias against certain groups of students (Towns and Robinson, 1993; Scouller, 1998; Rogers and Harley, 1999; Paxton, 2000; Dufresne et al., 2002; Zimmerman and Williams, 2003; Stanger-Hall, 2012).”
From Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently) (2014) · cites this paper as Rogers and Harley, 1999
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References 17 · Cited by 92
Research works printed but not linked: 20
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Metadata
- Authors
- Rogers, W. T., & Harley, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Alberta (CA)
- Edmonton Catholic Schools
- Venue
- Educational and Psychological Measurement
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1999-04
- Volume
- 59
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 234-247
- ISSN
- 0013-1644 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3888
- OpenAlex
- W2036146986
- Cited by
- 92
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 2.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Educational and Psychological Measurement (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Assessment and Pedagogy
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Educational Technology and Assessment
- Keywords
- multiple-choice tests, internal consistency, item discrimination, item difficulty, high-stakes testing, mathematics assessment, random guessing
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