Implications of multiple-choice testing in nursing education

• Published in: Nurse education today 2012-08, Vol.32 (6), p.e40-e44
• Main Authors: Bailey, Patricia H., Mossey, Sharolyn, Moroso, Sandra, Cloutier, Julie Duff, Love, Anna
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Choice Behavior; Clinical competence; Clinical medicine; Education, Nursing - methods; Educational Measurement - methods; Educational tests & measurements; Evaluation; Higher education; Humans; Knowledge; Learning; Multiple-choice; Negative suggestion effect; Nursing; Nursing education; Nursing Education Research; Nursing Evaluation Research; Resistance (Psychology); Testing effect
• ISSN: 0260-6917; 1532-2793
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nedt.2011.09.011

The evaluation of knowledge/competence is understood as an essential component of nursing education and practice. As such, nurse educators have a plethora of existing evaluation strategies from which to choose. A common written evaluative format used across all higher education settings is multiple-choice testing. This evaluation approach is accepted as a ‘user-friendly’ strategy to assess knowledge. Researchers from the disciplines of psychology and education have long been concerned with the consequences of multiple-choice testing on learning outcomes, a discussion that is essentially absent from the nursing literature. The purpose of this paper is to address the professional implications of multiple-choice testing in nursing. The potential knowledge consequences for nurse-learners, and by extension the provision of care to healthcare recipients, resultant from use of this testing modality are addressed within the context of the implementation of best practice guidelines in a long-term care home in a mid-sized rural and northern Canadian community with both regulated and non-regulated care providers.