Short Answer Question Definition

Short answer questions generally ask for brief, text-based responses and may also be referred to as fill-in-the-blank; or completion questions.

Variations of the short answer question may request a list of terms or rules in which the order is not important, or may require a numerical or formula response.

Characteristics of Short Answer Questions

Short Answer questions:

• do not measure interpretation
• can be used to check for preciseness such as correct spelling (good when using computer grading), proper or specific names of things, especially factual knowledge, and proper creation of formulas
• require specific, definite, exact information
• can be used to discriminate whether errors can be detected in a diagram, for example

Advantages of Short Answer Questions

• Easy to write.
• Reduces possibility of guessing.
• Can have a lengthy stem such as a paragraph. (Caution: You generally should not expect an exact answer character-by-character.)
• May be easy to score if the required answer is short.

Disadvantages of Short Answer Questions

• It can take time to create items with complex formulas.
• Can be turned into a measure of memorization ability.
• Grading can be subjective.
• Correct responses may appear incorrect due to minor errors such as misspellings, order of words, etc.
• Difficult to machine score. Much work is being conducted in this area, but it is still in early stages of development.

Average Response Time

1 - 2 minutes.

Constructing Short Answer Questions

Short Answer Content

• Design for recall of specific names, facts, and basic knowledge.
• Focus the question so there a limited number of possible correct responses (or only one) in order to discriminate achievement.
• Make sure that question provides enough information so that students know what constitutes a correct response. For example, if you discussed four books written by a certain author and you want students to name them, be specific on how many constitute a correct answer (i.e., name two of four, or name any three, etc.).

Short Answer Protocol

• Make sure that the answer will require only a few words.
• If a list is expected, limit the number of items to be listed to 6 or so.
• Write the stem in your own words; that is, don’t use wording directly from a text or reading assignments.
• Make the stem complete enough so that the meaning is clear.
• When the stem is an incomplete statement, place the “blank” for the correct choice at the end of the statement.
• When a negative item is used, emphasize the negative word or phrase, that is, underline, capitalize, or italicize, for example, “DOES NOT.”
• Avoid clues to the correct answer such as “a” or “an” as the last word of the stem or plural verbs that match plural choices.

Good Example of a Short Answer Question

In our class discussion on regression, what two terms were used interchangeably with the term “independent variable”?

Answer: predictor variable and explanatory variable

Bad Example of a Short Answer Question

What does the acronym ENIAC mean?

Answer: Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator

Main Errors

1. Perhaps knowledge of the exact words is not important.
2. It's not wise to expect an exact response when "numerical" could be remembered as "numeric" and "calculator" could be remembered as "calculation," etc.

Identifying Flawed Short Answer Question