CBSE Board released Guidelines For Making Multiple Choice Questions

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has released the Guidelines For Making Multiple Choice Questions, Multiple- choice questions (MCQs), especially, are an effective way to measure students’ understanding of crucial concepts, judgement and problem solving skills. Such questions also provide nuanced data on student learning outcomes and misconceptions

Good questions are central to any good assessment and the quality of the questions determines the quality of the insights that one can derive based on the data on those questions. A good question is one that challenges and stimulates a learner to think deeply and apply concepts

Good questions can influence how students learn and stimulate thinking, Good questions can distinguish mechanical learning from learning with understanding, Good questions can diagnose misconceptions and common errors

A multiple choice question consists of a Stem, Options, Key, Distractors, The stem is the beginning part of the question that presents the question to be solved, a question asked of the respondent, or an incomplete statement to be completed, and contains any other relevant information, The options are the possible answers that the respondent can choose from, with the correct answer called the key and the incorrect answers called distractors

Key Principles of Question creation are Test understanding of concepts and not just recall of facts, Test core learning and not peripheral facts, Use unfamiliar contexts to identify real learning, Test what is intended to be tested, Frame the question in an unambiguous and technically correct way,

Test specific alternate conceptions, misconceptions and student errors, Use real-life, authentic contexts instead of contrived ones, Use stimulus material as needed and test higher order skills, Use authentic data, maps, graphs or any other information, Use age-appropriate content, context as well as language, for more details and download handbook CLICK HERE