Quiz & e-learning evaluation: multiple choice questions

Want to evaluate more effectively the reasoning of your e-learning participants? Using multiple choice questions could be the answer!

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers”, explained Josef Albers, one of the most influential teachers of the 20th century. So, how can this be applied in terms of professional assessment and e-learning?

Multiple choice questions: why are they so popular?

Closed questions are an immediate and effective way to evaluate reasoning and test the understanding of your learners, who must select one answer from several options. By contrast, with open questions they must formulate their own response after deeper reflection on the how and why of a situation. Closed questions are also easier and faster to mark. They focus on the who, what, where and when, and to a lesser extent on the how and why. Thanks to its closed questions, the multiple choice quiz is the most popular evaluation method for e-learning.

[panel type=”danger”]Did you know the Dokeos Quiz tool allows you to create 29 types of different questions based on 7 types of logical reasoning, including multiple choice questions (MCQs)?[/panel]

10 tips for creating your multiple choice questions

1. Offer only one correct answer per question.
2. Throughout your questionnaire, your learners should be offered the same number of alternatives for each question.
3. Offer 4-5 alternatives. If you only suggest 2 or 3 responses, there is a chance your learners will randomly choose the correct answer.
4. Be concise in both the questions and the answers.
5. Ensure that each alternative is approximately the same length and has the same level of detail.
6. Be random in the way you distribute correct answers among different proposals.
7. Don’t try to mislead your learners with ambiguous answers or ones that are too similar.
8. Ask questions that align with your e-learning goals. Remember the purpose of the evaluation: to check whether your learners have absorbed and retained information. Concentrate on key concepts rather than testing every detail of the course.
9. Draw conclusions. Did a majority of your learners make a mistake on the same question? Maybe the concept was poorly conveyed during your course.
10. Suggesting a few multiple choice questions at the end of each e-learning module is a good way to reinforce key information. This helps learners remember significant elements.

Try multiple choice quizzes, free of charge for 60 days, with Dokeos EVALUATION.