REVIEW AND REVISE
Encourage Higher-Order Thinking
Something that
’s useful to consider when reviewing and revising your questions is
the extent to which you want to promote higher-order thinking in your testing and
learning outcomes.
There are many definitions of exactly what higher-order thinking means. Brookhart
(2010) identifies definitions of higher-order thinking as falling into three categories:
(1) those that define higher-order thinking in terms of transfer, (2) those that define
it in terms of critical thinking, and (3) those that define it in terms of problem-
solving.
In general, higher-order thinking is thinking on a level higher than just memorizing
facts or repeating information back in exactly the same way it was told. Higher-
order thinking requires students to do something with the facts: apply them, analyze
them, organize them, align them to concepts and connect these to other concepts,
question and critique them, and use them to creatively solve problems. Higher-order
thinking encourages students to be independent, active and confident in the way
they process and use the learned information.
You can promote and test for higher-order thinking within your multiple-choice
questions.
To help with this, it
’s useful to identify, organize, and clarify your educational
goals, by using a framework like Bloom
’s Taxonomy (1956). The 2001 revision of
Bloom
’s Taxonomy (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001) provides a dynamic, action-
orientated framework to classify and describe the cognitive processes and levels by
which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge.
Very briefly, these levels are:
The idea is to think about how you can use these levels to test for understanding and
ability that extends beyond the basics of remembering and understanding the
information.
Some examples:
Remembering
When did WWI begin?
Requires the student to
simply recall when the war
began.
Understanding
How did the killing of
Archduke Ferdinand provide
the spark for the war to
begin?
Requires the student to
understand why the
assassination caused the
war to begin.
Applying
Which of the following
"hotspots" in the world today
Requires the student to
understand the situation in
might be thrown into war with
the assassination of a world
leader?
a number of places in the
world, and apply what
they know about the
causes of conflict to those
situations.
Remembering
What are the symptoms of a cold?
Understanding
A patient has the following symptoms:
fever, blocked nose, headache, cough.
What ailment do they most likely
have?
Applying
What tests would you conduct to
determine if the patient has the flu?
Analyzing
How would you determine if the
patient has a cold, the flu, or allergies?
Evaluating
[example of a process to test for the
flu] what is the best justification for
using this process to test for the flu?
Here are some other ways to insert higher-order thinking into your multiple-
choice questions:
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