Adapting Multiple-Choice Item-Writing Guidelines to an Industrial Context

Abstract

Abstract:This paper proposes a guideline for writing MCQ items for our domain which promotes the use of Multiple Alternative Choice (MAC) items. This guideline is derived from one of the guidelines from the Taxonomy of item-writing guidelines reviewed by Haladyna et al, 2002. The new guideline is tested by delivering two sets of MCQ test items to a representative sample of candidates from the domain. One set of items complies with the proposed guideline and the other set of items does not. Evaluation of the relative effectiveness of the items in the experiment is achieved using established methods of item response analysis. The experiment shows that the new guideline is more applicable to the featured domain than the original guideline.