An examination of confidence testing in multiple-choice examinations.

Rothman (1969) has recently reported the results of an investigation into the use of confidence testing in multiple-choice examinations. In this study, a student’s answers to questions were marked in terms of not only their correctness but also his confidence in his answers; the more confident a student was of his answers, the higher his score if his answer were correct and the lower his score if incorrect. Full details of the scoring systems used by Rothman are shown in Table 1. It was found that confidence testing resulted in a greater possible range of scores, a larger standard deviation of student scores, and an increase in test reliability as compared with a more conventional scoring system (Rothman, 1969).