• Sciotti-Dishman VM
• Meseke C

• Association of Chiropractic Colleges / congresses

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare outcome levels attained when administered a multiple-choice and completion examination in which the information tested was identical.

METHODS: The study was carried out in a classroom of 35 students enrolled in a capstone course in pathology at a chiropractic college. Students were provided with a complete list of course goals and objectives prior to the examination. The examination was administered approximately two-thirds of the way through the course. Students were informed that, within a single testing session, they would be required to take two 15-question exams and that the test items would be of the multiple-choice and completion format. They were not provided with any other additional information regarding the exam process. Two examinations were formulated by the instructor, with one examination in multiple choice format and the other having identical content but in completion format. All test items were designed to have only one correct response. An example of test items follows:
Completion test item:
The non-neoplastic aging disorder of bone characterized by an overall decrease of bone mass which may present with pathologic bone fractures is termed _______________.Multiple-choice test item:
Which of the following is a non-neoplastic aging disorder of bone characterized by an overall decreased bone mass giving rise to pathologic fractures?
Osteopetrosis
Osteoarthritis
Osteoporosis
Achondroplasia

The students were initially administered the examination in completion format, followed immediately by the examination in multiple choice format. There were no time constraints on completion of either format, and students were not allowed to review their completion exam while taking the multiple choice exam. Data obtained were statistically analyzed using a standard paired t-test and values expressed as mean + SEM.

RESULTS: Student achievement was significantly higher on the multiple choice format as compared completion format (11+ 0.38 vs. 6.4+ 0.53; p<0.01).

DISCUSSION: The multiple choice format has been widely used because it can test many concepts in a short period of time; anticipated test answers are generally relatively non-subjective with regard to scoring; and outcomes can be obtained rapidly and through automation. However, writing high quality multiple choice questions is arduous and there may be too much emphasis placed on memorization and recognition of facts. In contrast, test items that require a written answer may avoid giving students credit for guessing and may be a more appropriate choice for assessing learning at a deeper level. Potential drawbacks to the use of completion items include subjectivity with regard to scoring and more labor-intensive scoring.

The results of this study indicate that the students’ ability to recognize a learned concept was superior to their ability to recall that same concept. An argument might be made that the student’s studying style may have influenced by the anticipation of being administered a multiple choice test (the standard test format formerly used in that course). However, students were given ample notification of the test structure well in advance of the exam and failed to perform successfully on the completion portion of the exam.

This abstract is reproduced with the permission of the publisher.