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Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions to Assess Learning: Measure What Matters— Evidence-Informed Tactics for Multiple-Choice Questions [Print Replica] Kindle Edition

by Patti Shank (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 out of 5 stars 50 ratings
If you’re an instructor or course developer—or simply train others—you need Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions. The information in this book will help you appropriately assess participant success and course quality.

Research points to the multitude of course and competency assessments that are poorly written, measure the wrong things, and are difficult to understand. Any of these problems can result in frustrated and angry participants, useless assessment information, and possibly even legal battles. We must avoid these problems.

We know that well-written multiple-choice questions can efficiently measure a wide range of important learning outcomes, not just recall of course content (contrary to inaccurate popular opinion). And well-written, higher-level multiple-choice assessments can be an effective proxy for higher levels of measurement. “Well-written” means our questions:

  • Measure the right things,
  • Don’t trick or frustrate test-takers, and
  • Are written so they are easy to understand and answer.
Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions is a “how-to” guide for creating well-written multiple-choice questions for people who deliver or develop training and instruction. The explanations, examples, and exercises work together to build practical knowledge and skill in writing good, valuable, and relevant multiple-choice questions. It provides insights from practice and summaries of each chapter. The extensive bibliography includes both authoritative and contemporary references on common multiple-choice question writing issues.

Some of the most important issues discussed in this book include:
  • Gaining the benefits of multiple-choice questions while overcoming the challenges.
  • Writing performance-based learning objectives that tell us what is important to assess.
  • Writing multiple-choice questions that adequately assess the learning objectives.
  • Assessing real-life and job-task thinking processes in our multiple-choice questions.
  • Building critical higher-level multiple-choice questions.
  • Crafting valuable and relevant stems, answer choices, and distractors.
  • Writing distractors that distinguish between those who know and those who don’t.
  • Writing feedback that moves participants forward.
  • Reviewing assessments adequately before using them.
  • Assessing the quality of assessments.
  • And more…
Patti Shank, PhD, is an internationally-known workplace learning expert, instructional designer, researcher, and authorwhois regularly quoted as one of the most influential people in e-learning and instructional design. She speaks regularly at training and learning technology conferences and is the author of Write and Organize for Deeper Learning and Manage Memory for Deeper Learning, which are available internationally on Amazon.

Her current evidence-based articles are available on eLearning Industry (https://elearningindustry.com/members/patti-shank-phd) and elsewhere. Patti completed her PhD at the University of Colorado, Denver. Her research on new online learners won an EDMEDIA best research paper award.

Patti builds and facilitates blended online courses for individuals and teams, and you can find out more about her Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions course: https://dlaw.newzenler.com/courses/mcqsp.

She lives in Colorado, USA, with her husband and her cats, Max and Zoe. She loves to hike, watch “The Voice,” struggle with growing vegetables in a very short growing season, and attend live music and comedy. She’s truly passionate about the results needed from training and instruction and has spent her career helping others “do what works.”

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    August 30, 2021
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  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09F4RXWVH
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ (August 30, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 30, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.9 MB
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  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 198 pages
  • Format ‏ : ‎ Print Replica
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 out of 5 stars 50 ratings

About the author

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Patti Shank

Patti Shank

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Patti Shank, PhD, is an internationally known workplace and digital learning expert, instructional designer, mentor, author, and facilitator. She is regularly listed as one of the most influential people in evidence-informed instructional design. She speaks at training and learning technology conferences and is the author of many digital learning, workplace learning, and learning science books. All of Patti’s books are available on Amazon internationally.

Some of Patti’s areas of interest include instructional writing and comprehension, learning objectives that describe needed results, and multiple-choice questions to assess whether the results were achieved. She teaches a highly regarded online course that improves the learning objective and multiple-choice question-writing skills of people who design and facilitate adult instruction. More information on this course: https://bit.ly/MCQcourse.

Patti was an award-winning contributing editor for Online Learning Magazine and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, Denver. Her research on new online learners won an EDMEDIA best research paper award.

You can find Patti’s more recent evidence-informed articles on eLearning Industry https://elearningindustry.com/members/patti-shank-phd. Sign up for her email list at the top of www.pattishank.com and follow her on Twitter: @pattishank.

Patti lives in Colorado, USA with her husband and fur babies, and likes to gets involved in local issues, walk and hike, create recipes, and binge-watch thrillers.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • David C. Holzemer
    5.0 out of 5 stars So far.. Excellent for a noobie like me!
    Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I am an accidental ID/Elearning creator. My main strengths are mainly all the eLearning technologies, but for a while now I have been digging into the ID theories. I've learned a good bit but I have always struggled with the application of the theories in the courses I am tasked to build. I just bought Patti's book and it is wonderful. No academic wordy language here, a huge help to me!! It's very straight forward and easy to digest.. oh there are a few academic words but nothing that causes my eyes to glaze over. She takes all the research on MCQ's and makes it relatable.. Flipping through the book there are always a lot of examples and actual steps on how to take your own assessment questions break them down & re-write them so they are valid and you can actually get useful data from them. This might be the best 20 bucks I've spent on a ID book in quite some time. You should get it!
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great for any experience level!
    Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    As an experienced instructional designer, I found value in the infographics and and the review of where to focus to get the best outcomes from my learners. As someone who also trains inexperienced assessment creators on content creation, this will be a great tool to help them define learning objectives and grow into creating higher-level assessments.
    We will be using this book as a text of sorts to lead internal training. I will edit this review with some follow-up feedback once we get started.
    Dr. Shank has broken this information down succinctly and made it usable for any level to create great question that will show where the learning gaps are and where to modify our training to get better outcomes.
    So excited to have this resource!
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  • Bill Sawyer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Book We've Needed for a Long Time is Finally Here!
    Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    We write and encounter MCQs in many places. In many of those uses, they are done horribly wrong. Sad but true. Patti gives the remedy to bad MCQs. She backs it up with research. Quite frankly nothing should stop you from getting this book, reading it, and putting it into practice. Act now! It is that good!
    One person found this helpful
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  • Robert Olinger
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great for college courses
    Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I was surprised by the bonus information beyond multiple-chouce questions (learning objectives and more). I know it was written more for TD in the workplace but it is great for college courses too.
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  • Andrew Muccio
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for all professionals involved in creating performance assessments!
    Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2023
    Patti Shank does an amazing job detailing the intricacies of developing valid and reliable multiple-choice assessments for all staff performance. As Patti eloquently and comprehensively explains, these assessments must be developed with comprehensive knowledge and skills. Patti provides an excellent framework for detailing necessary considerations (e.g., assessment validity, assessment reliability, multiple choice question types) for multiple choice assessment design and delivery. She breaks down these concepts in a very clear and concise manner; provides comprehensive examples illustrating the concepts, and then provides opportunities to apply the concepts (e.g., write one correct answer and two plausible distractors) with comparison to her own answers. Not only will you get a comprehensive overview of multiple choice assessments, you will also see the craft of learning design being executed with excellence from a guru as you read each chapter!
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  • Nicole Topping
    5.0 out of 5 stars Practical and helpful advice for content creators
    Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2023
    As a content creator, I have been writing MCQs for almost 20 years, and was pretty confident that I was writing great questions to assess learning. This book is fantastic, because Dr. Shank synthesizes the latest educational research and provides very helpful and practical advice on how to apply it in the best way.
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  • C. Bean
    5.0 out of 5 stars If you ever have to write test questions, get this book!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2023
    Patti Schank has gifted us with another great foundational book to help instructional designers and course writers how to craft better and more meaningful assessment questions. With an evidence-based approach, Schank lays it all out for you - consider this your how-to manual!
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  • Jeff
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Book to Buy on MCQs!
    Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2022
    When Dr. Patti Shank sits down to write and publish a book, it's always worth buying the book, reading it closely, and putting it to use in your L&D efforts.

    And that's true in the case of her new book, too, which focuses on writing multiple-choice questions.

    This book has all the hallmarks of a Dr. Shank book: it's based on well-research evidence and data (thanks so much for pouring through all this, Patti!); it's written in an engaging, clear, accessible, concise, and conversational manner; and it provides helpful prompts for reflection and practice so you'll actually learn, remember, and transfer instead of just read and forget.

    We all know the world is full of poorly written MC questions. I'm sad to say I've written my share myself. But we can all up our game by following some of the guidelines Dr. Shank lays out for us in this book.

    Buy this book by all means, and be sure to pick up her other books as well.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Jamie Billingham
    5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for anyone who designes, develops, or delivers learning
    Reviewed in Canada on September 6, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    This is much more than a well-written and easy-to-follow book about writing effective and valid multiple-choice questions. It's also a primer on how to design effective and valid instruction, beginning with task clarification and writing usable declarative or procedural, terminal and enabling learning objectives through to item analysis and blueprinting. I'll be referring back to this often and sending copies to the newer learning designers I work with. Just can't say how much I value this resource!
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  • MSZ
    5.0 out of 5 stars If you need to create an exam this is the book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 30, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    If you need to create a multiple-question exam, look no further. This is the book for you.
    All the concepts are explained with a simple language and it's full of examples and exercises.
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  • Henry
    5.0 out of 5 stars Loving the book. it’s fantastic!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 8, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    It’s easy to read, full of very helpful advice that is based on amazing research. I’ve already put the recommendations Patti Shank makes into practice.

    Once again, this book is fantastic
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  • Niall
    4.0 out of 5 stars Very well written with great examples and explains the WHY behind the need for effective MCQ’s
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Having bought your book last week, I thoroughly recommend it for those starting out and those experienced ID’s. It is very well written and has really good examples so the reader clearly gets the why behind the actions.
    All too often MCQ’s are easily answered through the process of elimination. This coupled with the fact that people use MCQ’s incorrectly as the only assement tool leads to a poor experience for learners and businesses seeking transfer of knowledge and skills.
    Your book will hopefully upskill those who read it to write effect MCQ’s in future. This can only be a great thing!
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