Modified-Multiple Choice as a Possible Alternative to Short Answer Assessments to Increase Long-Term Retention

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: Cognition and Assessment SIG Poster Session

Abstract

Research in cognitive psychology has consistently shown that repeated testing over repeated studying improves not only retention of information, but even transfer, a finding known as the testing effect. Furthermore, tasks that require more effortful retrieval, such as short-answer tests, promote better retention than recognition tasks, such as multiple-choice. Despite this evidence, repeated assessments are not employed as learning strategies in the classroom. Previous testing-effect research has begun to investigate the use of a modified-multiple choice format that can recreate the effortful retrieval invoked by short answer exams, while allowing for ease of scoring and administering, which is more commonly associated with multiple-choice. This study seeks to replicate and extend previous findings related to this modified multiple-choice.

Authors

• Alyssa Reinhart, The University of Texas - Austin

• Daniel A. Clark, The University of Texas - Austin

• Jason Crandall, The University of Texas - Austin

• Daniel H. Robinson, Colorado State University