Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4434] multiple choice questions - What about the "baby"?
From: Michel.Labour (Michel.Labour@univ-valenciennes.fr)
Date: Thu 27 Feb 2003 - 15:22:55 MET
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 15:22:55 +0100 From: "Michel.Labour" <Michel.Labour@univ-valenciennes.fr> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4434] multiple choice questions - What about the "baby"?
Greetings Alfred Bork and others
Alfred wrote:
< Further, with computers, we no longer need it. The sooner we realize
< this, and the sooner we explore other possibilities, the better off
< learning will be.
As a language and intercultural-communications teacher I tend to agree with Alfred's comments about the limits of "it", i.e. multiple choice questions (MCQ).
But, taking a reflective step back on the issue, four practical observations can be made to nuance this type of sweeping criticism.
First, as busy teachers we need a tool that is relatively easy and quick to use. But, it is true correcting MCQ by hand is hard work if one wants to draw anything useful, especially, from a summative assessment point of view.
Secondly, like it or not the tool is alive and well at grassroots level, e.g. the TOEIC, Test of English for International Communication, cf. http://www.toeic.com/. Either one sits out the dance, or get involved in something else more "worthy" (more fashionable?) of one's attention, or one accepts reality as it appears to be at grassroots and try to work with people from where they are. This being in itself a learning process about the process of learning through tools like MCQ, which are far from neutral from a learning/teaching point of view.
I would therefore argue that MCQ can be revisited thanks to well thought-out, pedagogically-driven tools e.g. networked computer technology for "collaborative learning", linked to a data base for" appropriate feedback" and data banks for "breadth of choice". Without these tools it seems difficult to really use MCQ to the full.
Thirdly, if I look how I have been using MCQ over the past 20 years, like many no doubt, I have been under-using it both from a learning and technical point of view. It would seem that MCQ tend to be more driven by its technique (e.g. its apparent ease of use from a logistic point of view), than by more coherent pedagogic considerations. The MCQ is probably is an example of the damage to learning via teaching when it is driven by top-down "techniques", rather than by a joint partnership of by research (reflective top-down process) and grassroots pedagogics (bottom-up process).
But, this assumes we understand precisely what we mean by "learning" and "teaching".
For example, what is the precise relationship between "deep" and "surface" learning, as I understand these concepts, in terms of the demands of a practical task to be done in a specific context? Does “surface” learning not play an important role in the (U-curve of the) learning process from a Piagetien perspective. Apparent “surface” learning could play an important role in the “accommodative” process of learning, and be linked to the hypothesis of “interlangage” in foreign language acquisition. Given this, to what extent can learners be helped to respond to a particular task via tools like the MCQ? It would seem reasonable to suppose that a tool like MCQ may be more adapted to prepare learners for "certain" (sub-) tasks than others in the extra-classroom world. If so what are these (sub-)tasks, which may involve apparent "surface learning", for example in language-cultural training domain?
Does anyone know of any studies or reflections published on the subject?
Fourthly, it seems that, compared to other related domains, there have been relatively little recent in-depth studies readily available to teachers, e.g. on the mass media of the Web, notably on the impact of the different types of MCQ (see the “Hot Potatoes” authoring system for an example of the different types of MCQ possible, cf. http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/wintutor/, and of the more conceptual possibilities and constraints of the diffrent forms of the technique. There are MCQ, and there are MCQ. One should not over-generalise too hastily about the form that MCQ can take, or how these different forms impact on the learning process.
At best, all that seems to exist for teachers is "How to" write MCQ. This may, in part, explain the often frankly amateurish use of the tool from a learning point of view, but it is not for that, that one needs to throw out the baby with the bath water (n'est-ce pas?).
Dr. Michel Labour
Associate Professor
Educational Sciences - teaching methods in language learning
Laboratoire des Sciences de la Communication
Université de Valenciennes et du Hainaut-Cambrésis
Le Moulin
Rue du Faubourg de Paris
F-59313 VALENCIENNES CEDEX 9
FRANCE
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