Editor’s Toolkit: Incorporating Interactive Skill-Builders (P. 4)

A true/false question presents a statement that students identify as either accurate or inaccurate.

True/false questions assist students in confirming their basic comprehension of topics and concepts. They can be especially beneficial when placed early in a chapter or used to preface other activity types. These questions may be made more challenging by writing examples that illustrate or contradict ideas from the text, which could then be justified as either true or false by individuals who haven’t read the corresponding material.

Examples by Discipline

• Behavioral & Social Sciences: Verify if a persuasive statement presents a claim of value rather than a claim of policy.
• Business & Management: Determine if an entertainment lawyer has violated an ethical principle.
• Science, Math, & Engineering: Confirm if an example illustrates Newton’s first law of motion.
• Humanities & Fine Arts: Decide if a statement summarizing Jain beliefs is accurate.

Additional Resource: See Quick Guide: Individual Comprehension-Check Questions

A multiple-choice or multiple-answer question presents a prompt to which students respond by selecting the correct answer(s) from four or more options.

Multiple-choice and multiple-answer questions support students in confirming comprehension of material in a more challenging manner. While they are often used to test if students can recall facts or understand concepts, multiple-choice and multiple-answer questions are also excellent tools for ascertaining whether students can put theories into practice or analyze ideas in context. For instance, these questions may be used in the following ways:

• to select the most appropriate definition for a given term
• to identify which theory or principle is used in an example
• to choose the best solution to a problem
• to determine the next step in a particular situation

Examples by Discipline

• Behavioral & Social Sciences: Identify which events occurred in Mesoamerica’s Classic period.
• Business & Management: Determine whether micro, mezzo, or macro analysis is being implemented in a strategic audit.
• Science, Math, & Engineering: Select the correct solution to a linear algebra problem.
• Humanities & Fine Arts: Confirm which colors to use in replicating Biedermeier interior style.

Additional Resources: See Quick Guide: Individual Comprehension-Check Questions and Guide to Creating Quality Assessments