Quick Scoring—Less Guessing onTrue-False Tests
Dwight W. Allen · The Clearing House A Journal of Educational Strategies Issues and Ideas · 1958
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN IMPRESSED by the superiority of true-false items where, if the item is false, the person is required to tell why it is false, thereby lessening the opportunities for pure guessing and increasing the validity of the test items. But I have objected to the fact that this requires reading each test paper individually, substantially slowing correction time and, in addition, opening to debate the legitimacy of an alternative interpretation by the student. I believe that a multiple-false test item to a large extent overcomes these difficulties. First of all, it is answerable on a standard multiple-choice answer sheet with no supplementary information required. Second, the item is rapidly completed by the student, allowing a greater number of items to be included in any testing period. Third, this kind of test item tends to lessen the ambiguity of a question by spotlighting the crucial information and indicating information which the question does not contest. Also the nature of the construction of