The main world types of business, their advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages and Disadvantages or Various Types of Questions (also see the "Types of Test Questions"...
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Advantages and Disadvantages or Various Types of Questions Used in Traditional Evaluation Schemes Clayton R. Wright, crwr77[at]gmail.com Type of Question Advantages Disadvantages Essay Can test higher-order thinking Ideal for assessing communication and organizational skills Can be constructed quickly Eliminates guessing Can take a long time to assess Evaluation can be subjective; thus, results may not be reliable Matching Measures primarily associations and relationships as well as sequence of events Can be used to measure questions beginning with who, when, where, and what Relatively easy to construct Easy to score Suited primarily for knowledge and comprehension Multiple-Choice Measures a variety of levels of learning Easy to score Can be analyzed to yield a variety of statistics When well-constructed, has proven to be an effective assessment tool Difficult to construct effective questions that measure higher-order thinking and contain a number of plausible detractors Short-Answer or Completion Relatively easy to construct Can cover a wide range of content Reduces guessing Primarily used for lower levels of thinking Prone to ambiguity Must be constructed carefully so as not to provide too many clues to the correct answer Scoring is dependent on
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A brief overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the following types of questions: essay, matching, multiple-choice, short-answer, and true-false. If you need information regarding when you should use these question types and how to construct them, refer to the accompanying document "Types of Test Questions".
Transcript of Advantages and Disadvantages or Various Types of Questions (also see the "Types of Test Questions"...
Advantages and Disadvantages or Various Types of QuestionsUsed in Traditional Evaluation Schemes
Clayton R. Wright, crwr77[at]gmail.com
Type of Question Advantages Disadvantages
Essay Can test higher-order thinking Ideal for assessing
communication and organizational skills
Can be constructed quickly Eliminates guessing
Can take a long time to assess Evaluation can be subjective; thus,
results may not be reliable
Matching Measures primarily associations and relationships as well as sequence of events
Can be used to measure questions beginning with who, when, where, and what
Relatively easy to construct Easy to score
Suited primarily for knowledge and comprehension
Multiple-Choice Measures a variety of levels of learning
Easy to score Can be analyzed to yield a
variety of statistics When well-constructed, has
proven to be an effective assessment tool
Difficult to construct effective questions that measure higher-order thinking and contain a number of plausible detractors
Short-Answer or Completion
Relatively easy to construct Can cover a wide range of
content Reduces guessing
Primarily used for lower levels of thinking
Prone to ambiguity Must be constructed carefully so
as not to provide too many clues to the correct answer
Scoring is dependent on the judgement of the evaluator
True-False Can test a large body of material
Easy to score
Difficult to construct questions that are definitely or unequivocally true or false
Prone to guessing
If you are evaluating collaboration and the use of social media in the digital age, consider employing techniques that are congruent with your purpose such as asking individuals to complete a project in the community, design a PowerPoint presentation, produce a digital video clip, or publish a blog or a wiki. Prior to these activities, establish criteria that can be used to evaluate the success of the activity. Do not rely on the standard test formats to evaluate collaboration, digital literacy, and social media skills. Think beyond your traditional approaches. Thus, you should avoid using the usual question formats (as noted in the table above) to measure the achievement of certain learning outcomes.
