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From our experience of working with schools and coaching centers, we see that many teachers are resistant to adopting MCQ-based testing as a way of regularly assessing their students for their knowledge gaps.
There are two usual reasons that they put forth
- the final examination is not going to be an MCQ test
- you can easily guess the answers in an MCQ test
Let's examine these arguments one by one. If we think about a situation that requires continuous testing, consider a science teacher who delivered a lesson on a topic and wants to know if students have understood the taught concepts. If she chooses to conduct a descriptive examination, she has to acknowledge that the correctness of the answer rests on two things.
-the ability to communicate thoughts in writing in a language that is not his or her mother tongue.
- the knowledge, understanding, and ability to apply higher-order thinking to that particular concept.
These two skills are entirely different, prompting the teacher to focus on developing one before the other. The correct order is to develop the knowledge, understanding, and higher-order thinking about the concept at hand and then train the student to express the knowledge in written language.
Now for a teacher who understands this and would like to focus on whether the student has understood the concept or not, the descriptive test is not a viable option. It is not only that but also that descriptive test comes along with several disadvantages for a teacher as well as a student. For both, it is going to be time-consuming taking the test & evaluating it. Hence the number of question items is usually kept limited and hence the scope of testing the minutest of the concepts goes for a toss. Moreover, any analysis of student performance would involve a lot of complexities, will be costly, and will often be time-consuming.
On the other hand, carefully crafted multiple-choice questions around the instructional objectives would effectively assess the current student knowledge and give the teacher feedback on student learning without much time involvement on the part of the learner as well as the teacher. Since the MCQ-based assessment is quick and can be done at a granular level in an automated fashion, it is easy to trigger content objects meant for remedial action to supplement the teaching-learning process. Analysis through MCQ-based tests are simpler, time-saving, cost-effective, and can enable quick remedial action on the part of the teacher.
CBSE teachers, at coaching centers or schools, should shed their aversion for MCQs and increasingly use them for continuous testing of the student learning. MCQ tests conducted through a platform like TCY have their advantages, the platform saves teacher's time by providing an almost inexhaustible ready-made question bank crafted by experts on international standards. The platform provides students with many automated learning tools and comes integrated with a mobile app as well as the coaching center ERP. There are specialized reports for each stakeholder. It is a perfect amalgamation of teacher-led learning and machine-assisted learning.
The second objection to MCQ tests is that it makes guessing easier. In a 4 option questionnaire, the maximum expected score a student can score by wildly guessing can at best be placed at 25%. The threshold scores for deciding mastery of a topic are usually above that. Sometimes students use the elimination of options, but what we need to realize is that to eliminate options in a well-crafted question, the student needs to have an even more in-depth knowledge of the subject. Exams that have immense consequences for the future of the students like all standardized college admission tests or competitive exams like NEET and JEE are conducted in an MCQ format.
It is time to seriously evaluate student learning on day-to-day basis, it becomes even more important when many classes are now happening online due to the pandemic. The best way as we have seen is an MCQ format. The best MCQ testing for CBSE along with all corrective action tools comes from TCY. It is high time that you upgrade the testing system in your coaching center.
