IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hin/jnljps/240263.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New Indices for Refining Multiple Choice Questions

Author

Listed:
  • Mariano Amo-Salas
  • María del Mar Arroyo-Jimenez
  • David Bustos-Escribano
  • Eva Fairén-Jiménez
  • Jesús López-Fidalgo

Abstract

Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are one of the most popular tools to evaluate learning and knowledge in higher education. Nowadays, there are a few indices to measure reliability and validity of these questions, for instance, to check the difficulty of a particular question (item) or the ability to discriminate from less to more knowledge. In this work two new indices have been constructed: (i) the no answer index measures the relationship between the number of errors and the number of no answers; (ii) the homogeneity index measures homogeneity of the wrong responses (distractors). The indices are based on the lack-of-fit statistic, whose distribution is approximated by a chi-square distribution for a large number of errors. An algorithm combining several traditional and new indices has been developed to refine continuously a database of MCQs. The final objective of this work is the classification of MCQs from a large database of items in order to produce an automated-supervised system of generating tests with specific characteristics, such as more or less difficulty or capacity of discriminating knowledge of the topic.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariano Amo-Salas & María del Mar Arroyo-Jimenez & David Bustos-Escribano & Eva Fairén-Jiménez & Jesús López-Fidalgo, 2014. "New Indices for Refining Multiple Choice Questions," Journal of Probability and Statistics, Hindawi, vol. 2014, pages 1-8, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:hin:jnljps:240263
    DOI: 10.1155/2014/240263
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/JPS/2014/240263.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/JPS/2014/240263.xml
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1155/2014/240263?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hin:jnljps:240263. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mohamed Abdelhakeem (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.hindawi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.