What’s Wrong with Multiple-Choice?
In The Madness of Multiple-Choice Andrew Pudewa discusses why multiple-choice questions do not encourage reasoning. He states,
There is no room for different answers, unique responses, or independent views. The emphasis is always on what the child does not know, not on helping him clarify and express what he does know.
Do we really want to focus on what our child doesn’t know? It seems to me this just serves to discourage and frustrate. Students are conditioned to pass the test but end up feeling inferior. Then the game of comparing scores continues all the way through college and into the work place.
As home educators we don’t have to prepare for standardized tests. Our emphasis can be on teaching our children to think. If we challenge them to labor over ideas, they will receive the reward of knowing that they understand. They will be much better “fit for usefulness in their future stations” since in life you are rarely given the answers. (from Webster’s 1828 definition of education)
You know what is funny? I always excelled on essay tests and did not fare as well on multiple choice. You had to know every dumb fact to do well on them. The fact that I understood the material was not as important as how many discrete pieces of information I was able to retain.
I got you added to TTLB, and there isn’t really any code you need for your blog. Or are you talking about the code you need to join TTLB in order to enter the ecosystem? I only request a link to the community, but that is voluntary.
If you are trying to join TTLB, I’m not sure if I can help. I don’t know much about wordpress, but I’m sure Andrea would be glad to help. She is awesome that way.
Dana,
I didn’t like essay tests in college because I thought they were hard but after pulling a few ideas out of my head I actually felt smarter. Guessing the correct answer to be “c” did not have the same effect.
Thanks for adding me to TTLB. I was thinking that I needed a code to add the community graphic with an embedded link. I’m very good at making things more complicated for myself. :) And yes, Andrea is awesome!
When I’m answering them, I prefer multiple-choice over true/false. I tend to overthink true/false and usually get them wrong.
I wouldn’t think any type of question would be bad for home schoolers, though, as long as the mom is asking or answering the questions aloud. If I am asking the question, I can then ask the child why he answered the way he did. If it was a written test and I am showing him which questions he missed, I still have the opportunity to discover what he was thinking. When I tell him what the test key said was correct, he learns what the tester wanted as the answer.
Sometimes his answers are different from the key, but correct because of how he was thinking about the question. These lead to very interesting discussions that I wouldn’t want to miss out on.
Connie,
I don’t think multiple-choice questions are bad just ineffective as a measure of understanding. Because home schoolers practice using everything as a lesson, I see how you adapt multiple-choice for your purposes. We agree that it is more important to know what our children are thinking than that their answers match the key. I believe this is best accomplished by favoring discussion and reasoning questions over fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice.
Not against using multiple choice as a method of testing here. It challenges Chicken Little to focus on remembering what she’s read, been taught, or had a discussion about.
We’ve always felt that multiple choice questions really were about guessing which answer best fit the questions – in other words, an exercise in logic and reading comprehension. Not ever in testing knowledge of what the questions are about. :D Approaching it that way somehow leads to higher test scores and the kids (and us too) have always approached it as some sort of game. Not that we have to test at all.
Thanks for the awesomeness words, it helps on days I don’t feel awesome. :D If you need a hand, holler.
HennyPenny,
I have used multiple-choice tests to measure reading comprehension. They helped me evaluate my son’s reading ability and my son enjoyed them. I am not “against” multiple-choice. I just favor using other methods to help my children to express what they know.
Andrea,
I like your suggestion. If you treat multiple-choice questions like a game it takes the pressure off and affirms that they aren’t an accurate measure of knowledge. It’s too bad the computers that grade SAT tests can’t evaluate with that understanding. :)
You’re welcome for the awesomeness words. This is a wonderful place to blog thanks to you.