Teachers must face multiple challenges on a daily basis such as increased workload, educational reforms or crowded classrooms. For this reason, multiple choice exams, corrected by machines, are proliferating as an alternative and effective form of evaluation.
Experts agree that these kinds of tests are helpful, but they shouldn't be used for everything. "There are subjects that can be evaluated quite well with test-type exams, but they are not the majority," says Alfonso Aguiló, president of the Spanish Confederation of Teaching Centers (CECE).
“It is one thing to recognize a prohibited direction sign; another, to understand that you cannot circulate on that road in that sense, and yet another, to have acquired the commitment and responsibility that comes with respecting traffic signals”, explains Miguel Sola, director of the Department of Didactics and School Organization of the University from Malaga. "The multiple choice exam stays at the first of the levels, the most elementary."
The dilemma faced with these evaluations is to determine if the students are able to write and argue based on a test. Some experts have been perceiving deficiencies in this regard for some time. "The new generations should learn to write and argue better in exams and in all areas," says Alfonso Aguiló. "And also, in oral presentations." Miguel Sola is also blunt in this regard. “It is evident that they do not favor writing or argumentation. If anything, the understanding of the statements, when they are formulated unequivocally and do not lead to error.
The risk that a clever student, with the ability to deduce the correct answer from the choices, might pass the subject without really understanding it is another problem. "The test-type exams are at the exclusive service of the qualification, supposedly objective, but certainly not of the evaluation," says Sola. "This is something very different that is aimed at understanding the learning that could have been done and the alternatives for improvement by teachers and students."
Despite the cons, there are advantages to performing assessments that are then corrected by machines. In the case of teachers, there is no doubt that it makes their day-to-day life easier.
"The multiple choice exams are easy to correct and treat in terms of their results," confirms Alfonso Aguiló. “They are widely used for language exams, computer certifications, etc.”
What is not usually taken into account is the work required by the teacher to prepare for the exam. "It is indisputable that it is very convenient to correct multiple choice exams, especially if a machine does it," explains Miguel Sola. “However, writing a good test-type exam, which allows one to get an idea of the extent to which certain data is recognized or remembered, is much more difficult than one might think. It requires time and effort that, in my opinion, is not worth the low-level academic information it provides.”
In the case of students, the advantage of having to study in a less exhaustive way can become a double-edged sword. “It might seem like it means not having to understand complex texts, but just memorizing parts of them,” says Sola. "Obviously, it's a very debatable advantage."
