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Consider the mix of your testing formats: Combine traditional testing formats—multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions—with creative, open-ended assessments that can elicit different strengths and interests.

Tests aren’t just tools to evaluate learning; they can also alter a student’s understanding of a topic.

Instead of a single high-stakes test, consider breaking it into smaller low-stakes tests that you can spread throughout the school year.

When students take high-stakes tests, their cortisol levels—a biological marker for stress—rise dramatically, impeding their ability to concentrate and artificially lowering test scores

Time limits are unavoidable, but you can mitigate their pernicious effects on anxiety levels. “Evidence strongly suggests that timed tests cause the early onset of math anxiety for students across the achievement range,”

ask students to write their own test questions. 

Beyond test design, there’s the important question of what happens after a test. All too often, students receive a test, glance at the grade, and move on. But that deprives them, and the teacher, of a valuable opportunity to address misconceptions and gaps in knowledge. Don’t think of tests as an endpoint to learning. Follow up with feedback, and consider strategies like “exam wrappers”— short metacognitive writing activities that ask students to review their performance on the test and think about ways they could improve in future testing scenarios.

Because “memory is the residue of thought,” and this MCQ requires more thought, it will almost certainly result in more memory (a.k.a. “learning”).

to encourage our students to think more.Step 1: show the MCQ — but not the potential answers;Step 2: pause just a bit;Step 3: okay, NOW show the answers.In theory, students just might use that strategic pause to see if they can think of the answer on their own.

easy strategies to improve the quality of MCQs

Conclusion #1: the wait just a bit strategy worked

Conclusion #2: the benefit came from effortful thinking

Conclusion #3: the “make the alternative answers plausible” strategy still works.

If you want to have your students learn more from multiple-choice questions, build in a short pause between the question and the possible answers.And, encourage your students to think during that pause: what will the right answer be?The more thinking, the more learning.