Do you prefer multiple choice or free response exams?
Out of 25 classes, I’ve only had two with multiple-choice exams. For the most part, I don’t think multiple-choice questions are appropriate at the college level.
Multiple choice for sures! So much better. 2/3 of my classes so far have been MC only.
I concur that multiple choice tests are not really college level assessments unless they have some additional components to them. They are typical of schools that are quasi-colleges. Very typical of mediocre public universities that favor efficiency over scholarship and are more an extension of high school than anything else-sort of grades 13,14,15, and 16. Students who declare “It was so much like high school I had no adjustment period at all” are likely to be at such a school.
Lostaccount, I think that really depends on how the test is structured. I teach computer science at the community college level, and I use multiple choice tests, but my MC tests are very different from “traditional” MC tests that simply test surface-level information (e.g. whats the definition of X, which of the following sentences best describes X, etc.).
For example, many of my MC questions will provide some code, and the students have to correctly determine the output of the code. Or as another example, each of the options will contain code, and the question will be phrased, “Which of the options below will NOT do x”, meaning that all of the options except for one will do x, and the student’s have to determine which option is wrong (which of the code snippets will not do x). It’s not something that can simply be memorized, as the only way they can arrive at the correct answer to is to actually study the code and work out the solution. And I choose the distractors (wrong answers) in such a way that if they make common mistakes, it will naturally lead them to one of the wrong answers. And starting this semester I’m also going to be including a “none of the above” option for all of the questions, which will make the questions more difficult, but also more accurate in terms of representing what the students really know. I may even implement a penalty for choosing the wrong answer to discourage guessing.
All that being said, my tests are not fully MC – there are always one or two programming problems the students have to do from scratch. Though I have been told, even by some of my better students, that my MC questions are more difficult than my programming problems.
I’ve had two physics classes, two gen chem classes, and one organic chemistry class with multiple-choice-only tests. Somehow didn’t stop those classes from having horrendously low averages. Wonder if it’s because I’m at a “mediocre quasi-college.” ;))
I like MC better for some subjects. The answer’s there, you just have to find it.
Mmm, multiple choice exams are harder to create but easier to grade (hello, Scantron). Free response exams are easier to create but harder to grade.
Some information lends itself well to being tested with multiple choice, and in a 300+ person introductory lecture the instructor may have no choice but to give at least a partially MC exam just in terms of the feasibility of grading all of that - even at the best universities. But I don’t think any exam in college should be ONLY multiple choice, and there are some subject areas that really shouldn’t have any MC questions at all because they are not well-suited to testing the kind of knowledge in that area.
If I don’t know…Free response, I can get some partial credit.
If I do know… Multiple choice, less work don’t have to write stuff.
I prefer free response because it allows me to show my creativity.
I prefer matching with a word bank 
@Mandalorian I agree. Partial credit is nice if I struggle in the subject, but annoying if it means the teacher takes off points for “not showing enough work” or something, despite getting the right answer. Maybe this kind of thing only happens in HS…?
I’ve performed better on exams that had 80% MC questions and 20% short answers (content, not grade percentage).