Multiple‐Choice Tests and Student Understanding: What Is the Connection?

Instructors can use both “multiple‐choice” (MC) and “constructed response” (CR) questions (such as short answer, essay, or problem‐solving questions) to evaluate student understanding of course materials and principles. This article begins by discussing the advantages and concerns of using these alternate test formats and reviews the studies conducted to test the hypothesis (or perhaps better described as the hope) that MC tests, by themselves, perform an adequate job of evaluating student understanding of course materials. Despite research from educational psychology demonstrating the potential for MC tests to measure the same levels of student mastery as CR tests, recent studies in specific educational domains find imperfect relationships between these two performance measures. We suggest that a significant confound in prior experiments has been the treatment of MC questions as homogeneous entities when in fact MC questions may test widely varying levels of student understanding. The primary contribution of the article is a modified research model for CR/MC research based on knowledge‐level analyses of MC test banks and CR question sets from basic computer language programming. The analyses are based on an operationalization of Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Goals for the domain, which is used to develop a skills‐focused taxonomy of MC questions. However, we propose that their analyses readily generalize to similar teaching domains of interest to decision sciences educators such as modeling and simulation programming.     

Separating the Odds: Thresholds for Entropy in Logistic Regression

Abstract

Researchers are often reluctant to rely on classification rates because a model with favorable classification rates but poor separation may not replicate well. In comparison, entropy captures information about borderline cases unlikely to generalize to the population. In logistic regression, the correctness of predicted group membership is known, however, this information has not yet been utilized in entropy calculations. The purpose of this study was to, 1) introduce three new variants of entropy as approximate-model-fit measures, 2) establish rule-of-thumb thresholds to determine whether a theoretical model fits the data, and 3) investigate empirical Type I error and statistical power associated with those thresholds. Results are presented from two Monte Carlo simulations. Simulation results indicated that EFR-rescaled was the most representative of overall model effect size, whereas EFR provided the most intuitive interpretation for all group size ratios. Empirically-derived thresholds are provided.     

Journalism

George E. Stevens and John B. Webster's Law and the Student Press (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Jerome L. Nelson's Libel. A Basic Program for Beginning Journalists (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Art of the Printed Book: 1455-1955 (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973---$20.00/11.00)

Bruce Buschel, Albert Robbins, William Vitta, and Rod Nordland's The Watergate File (New York: Quick Fox Inc., 33 West 60th St., 1973---$3.95, paper)     

General Mass Communication

Jack Temple Kirby's Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination. (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1978—$9.95)

Dan Nimmo's Political Communication and Public Opinion in America (Santa Monica, Calif.: Goodyear Publishing Co., 1978—price not given, but available in hard and paper editions)

Raymond G. Smith's The Message Measurement Inventory: A Profile for Communication Analysis (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1978—$12.50)

Fred Fedler's An Introduction to the Mass Media (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1978—price not given, paper)

Rolf Myller's Symbols and their Meaning (New York: Atheneum, 1978—$9.95)

William E. Francois, Mass Media Law and Regulation (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, Inc., 1978—price not given)

James Leigh and Claude R. Martin, Jr., Current Issues and Research in Advertising (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, 1978—$4.75, paper)

Philip Ward Burton's Advertising Copywriting (Columbus, Ohio: Grid, 1978—$12.95)

Postal and Allied Arenas–Research Task Specifications, Phase I: Arena Survey by John F. McLaughlin (October 1977, 39 pp., $10.90, paper, Working Paper W-77-9)

The Communications Act Policy Toward Competition: A Failure to Communicate by G. Hamilton Loeb (October 1977, 95 pp., $23.40, paper, Publication P-77-3)

Roland E. Wolseley's Careers in Religious Communications (Herald Press, Scottdale, Pa. 15683—$4.95, paper)

Roland Barthes' Image-Music- Text (New York: Hill & Wang, 1977—$8.95)

Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff's The Modern Researcher (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977—$6.95 in paper, and also available in hardback)     

Contribution from various disciplines to measurement and evaluation in early childhood education

This discussion of actual and potential contributions from various discplines to measurement and evaluation, particularly in early childhood education, has crossed several fields of endeavor. Still, it represents only a small, briefly treated subset of all such potential contributions; the interested reader also may wish to examine Goodwin and Driscoll (1980) and Smith (1981a, b). Nonetheless, the diversity and potency of these approaches suggest that a multidisciplinary approach for processes such as measurement and evaluation would be beneficial. Early childhood education is likely well served by an electric approach in finding measures for children and in evaluating programs for them.     

Intentionality as measured in the persistence and elaboration of communication by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

In human infancy, 2 criteria for intentional communication are (a) persistence in and (b) elaboration of communication when initial attempts to communicate fail. Twenty-nine chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were presented with both desirable (a banana) and undesirable food (commercial primate chow). Three conditions were administered: (a) the banana was delivered (successful communication), (b) half of the banana was delivered (partially successful communication), and (c) the chow was delivered (failed communication). The chimpanzees exhibited persistence in and elaboration of their communication in every condition except when the banana was delivered. Thus, their communication was about a specific item, demonstrating that both intentionality and nonverbal reference are capacities shared by humans with our nearest living relatives, the great apes.     

Comparison of Hydrostatic Weighing at Residual Volume and Total Lung Capacity in Children

Abstract

The influence of perceptions of the motivational climate and perceived ability on situational motivation and the physical activity behavior of 213 male and 229 female adolescent physical education students (M age= 12.56 years; SD = 0.96) was examined over a 3-day period. A significant age by gender interaction emerged, with physical activity declining from the sixth to eighth grade. The decline was more pronounced among female than male students. Perceptions of a mastery climate were strongly related to more self-determined forms of situational motivation. In contrast, perceptions of a performance climate were strongly related to less self-determined forms of situational motivation. Results of a hierarchical regression analysis revealed gender, perceived ability, and perceptions of a mastery climate to explain a significant amount of variance in physical activity. These findings suggest that promoting a mastery oriented motivational climate in physical education will foster self-determined situational motivation and physical activity.