On the Benefit of Changing Multiple-Choice Answers: Student Perception and Performance

Introduction Throughout formal education one of the most widely used devices to evaluate progress and performance has been the multiple-choice test, or some variation of this objective format. Regardless of the tendency of educators to rely on this type of examination question, few educators or educational counselors include specific multiple-choice exam-taking strategies as part of their curricula. Nevertheless, students assimilate individual test-taking strategies and one tactic of that strategy is dealing with the temptation to change answers after an original answer selection has been made. Students are often confronted with the dilemma of whether or not to change their original selection in light of what appears to be the "new" correct answer. Additionally, prior studies have shown that even though many students change answers, the widespread "conventional wisdom" has been that the first multiple-choice answer selected is usually believed to be the best answer (Foote and Belinky, 1972; Geiger, 1991; Pressley and Ghatala, and 1988; Zakay and Glicksohn, 1992). Although the findings regarding the benefit of answer-changing are generally clear, most of these studies have been performed on under-class college students, usually in psychology, education or educational psychology courses. This study extends research on answer-changing to upper-level college courses in accounting in order to more broadly assess the benefit of answer changing behavior. Upper level students, due to their advanced stage of mastery, may exhibit different behaviors, perceptions or outcomes when confronted with a multiple-choice examination format than their less educated peers. Also, students of business courses represent an under studied group that may potentially differ regarding answer-switching behavior. The study also analyzes students' individual perceptions toward changing their original answers and compares those perceptions to actual performance. Finally, the gender of the student and its possible effect on answer-changing behavior and perception is analyzed. Prior Research The first empirical study by Mathews (1929) examined college students in introductory educational psychology courses and found that over 53 percent of the answers changed on multiple-choice questions were from a wrong answer to the right answer (WR), approximately 22 percent were from the right answer to a wrong answer (RW) and the remaining changes were from wrong answers to other wrong answers (WW). The basic finding of the Mathews (1929) study, that for every point lost roughly two to three points are gained, have been upheld by later researchers (Bath, 1967; Foote and Belinky, 1972; Mueller and Wasser, 1977; Videler and Hansen, 1980; Geiger, 1991). Additionally, researchers have examined several individual characteristics and potential causes of answer-switching behavior. Reile and Briggs (1952) found that females changed answers more often, but overall gained fewer points than male students. Bath (1967), however, found that females gained more points than males, and several studies have found no gender relation to switching behavior or net gain (Copeland, 1972; Geiger, 1991; Mueller and Shwedel, 1975; Reiling and Taylor, 1972). Finally, Videler and Hansen (1980) found that changes were more likely to be made on difficult rather than easy items, although Jacobs (1972) concluded students changed more answers on low to moderate difficulty items. In a related area of research, Pressley and Ghatala (1988), Pressley, Ghatala, Woloshyn and Pirie (1990) and Zakay and Glicksohn (1992) examined student confidence on multiple-choice questions. They found that students often believed that there was a good chance that their initial answer was correct when, in fact, it was incorrect. The sparse investigation of student perception regarding answer-switching has usually been based on general opinion (Mathews, 1929; Mueller and Schwedel, 1975) or has aggregated students of like opinion together for analysis (Jacobs, 1972). …