The Influence of Behaviorist on the Multiple-choice Items

李迎旭 張曉紅 吳克勤

Abstract:Language testing is related to the language, language learning and language teaching. The effects of learning and teaching are interrelated to testing; teachers need to be able to make clear and useful interpretations of test data in order to understand their students better. With this careful examination, some insight into the format, nature and characteristics is expected to gain, which paves a smooth way for the actual evaluation of the multiple?choice technique in testing.

Key words:multiple;choice item;behaviorist

【中圖分類號】G64 【文獻標識碼】A 【文章編號】2095-3089(2014)01-0098-01

Behaviorist psychology is the theory of psychology which states that human and animal behavior can and should be studied in terms of physical processes only. It led to theories of learning which explained how can external event (a stimulus) caused a change in the behavior of an individual (a person) without using concepts like ‘mind or “idea”, or any kind of mental behavior (Longman dictionary of applied linguistics explains on page 27).

The founder of behavioral psychology, J. B. Watson believed that the task of psychological study may reveal the logical relationship between stimulus and response, which means that language is a set of habit which is formed gradually through the interaction between stimulus and response. Its influence on language test is: speed has become an important factor in language test, because the main task of foreign language testing is to see whether the language habit has been formed or not, i.e. to test how fast the students may give his/her response naturally in real language context. The speed is usually tested through setting test time limit for the testers to finish the test, TOEFL mainly using the multiple?choice item is a case in this point. The emphasis on speed in foreign language test has directly influenced the formation of the multiple choice item in which the most advantageous point is that it forces students to response as quickly as possible. A large quantity of items need to be finished in a certain time limit which is one of the main features of the multiple?choice item, that is to say, the quicker a student responses to correct choices , the stronger he has the ability to know well the receptive knowledge.

Behaviorists adhered to the objective methods to observe things on the basis of its objective characteristics which lay the foundation of the multiple?choice item.

The type of the multiple?choice item has the following characteristics:

1.There is usually only one possible correct answer for each item.

2.Each item samples particular element through the use of one skill.

3.Items are not dependent on one another—changing one item does not change the tester??s performance on the other items of the test—cf. cloze testing.

These characteristics convince us that they have the makings of objective description and objective observation and have several important consequences for the development and administration of the multiple?choice test. So the multiple?choice item is undoubtedly considered as one of the most widely used types of items in objective test. The multiple?choice test is an example of objective test that can be marked without the use of the examiner??s personal judgment.

References:

[1]Bachman, Lyle. F, 1990, Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford University Press.

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[5]Richards, Jack, Platt, John, Weber, Heidi, 1985, Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, Longman Group UK Limited. P276

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