Does using MCQ assessment encourage rote or surface learning?

Rote or surface learning happens whatever the assessment method. Traditional ‘problem’ questions allow examiners to distinguish between surface learners and those who have shown understanding through a higher level of application and analysis, and hence avoid rewarding (and by implication encouraging) surface learning. Appropriate MCQs can be used in the same way to distinguish the surface learner from the deeper learner, where this is the purpose of your assessment, although this would require a sufficient number of questions to eliminate those ‘lucky monkeys’. Do remember however that any form of valid assessment is likely to require the student to display some form of knowledge which is acquired by rote learning. You may wish to utilise MCQs to test this knowledge, and assess other skills in more traditional ways. Knowledge-based questions are also a useful formative assessment tool to check whether students have grasped the basics.

Setting MCQs which demand more than knowledge from students is more difficult than setting factual questions, but can be done (see Carneson, 2002). Giving students a sample of the type of questions they can expect is the best way of encouraging them to adopt appropriate learning methods.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010