Writing Accessible Multiple Choice Exam Questions

How do you ensure that your Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) for exams are accessible to your students?

The accessibility of multiple choice questions (MCQs) can depend on how questions are designed. If not designed with intention, MCQs can create unnecessary cognitive load, making exams more difficult for neurodivergent students for reasons unrelated to the knowledge being assessed.

💡 Colleagues at University of Nottingham have developed a guide to help educators create more accessible and neuro-inclusive MCQ assessments, particularly for neurodivergent students such as those with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia. The recommendations are based on research and consultation with students, including neurodivergent learners.

📖 Digital Assessment Leads in LTDS have read this guide and thought we would share a summary with our Inspera users to help those using MCQs to ensure their questions are accessible.

8 Guiding Principles to Writing Accessible MCQs

1. Be Concise

• Remove unnecessary words and repetition.
• Break long sentences into shorter ones.

2. Be Specific and Direct

• Make it clear exactly what is being asked.
• Avoid vague wording, idioms, or ambiguous terms.

3. Keep it Positive

• Avoid negative phrasing such as "Which is NOT...?"
• If negatives are necessary, highlight them (e.g., NOT)

4. Distinguish Answer Choices

• Make options visually and linguistically distinct - e.g. you could highlight key contrasts.
• Avoid answer choices that differ by only a few words.

5. Use Simple Sentence Structures

• Present one main idea at a time.

6. Provide Brief Study Context

• When referring to studies or theories, briefly explain what they are about.

7. Define Acronyms Once Per Question

• Introduce the full term and acronym together the first time, e.g. Multiple Choice Question (MCQ), then avoid repeatedly writing out the full term.

8. Use Hypothetical Scenarios Carefully

• Avoid unnecessary background details.
• Use complex scenarios only when they are essential to what is being assessed.

📝 Exam Formatting Recommendations

• Limit pages to approximately 3-5 questions.
  • With Inspera, we tend to have one question per page. You can have questions on one continuous page but we would only recommend this for a small number of questions.
• Avoid placing multiple lengthy questions together.
  • It is possible to use randomisation in Inspera to mix up questions.
• Group questions by topic rather than mixing topics randomly.
  • You can use sections in Inspera to group your MCQs by topic.
• Use topic headings to help students orient themselves.
  • You could use your question names as an indicator for topics and ask the Digital Exams Team to leave question titles visible in the exam.
• Where possible, enable and promote tools that allow students to cross out or grey out answer options.
  • This is not currently possible with Inspera but the team can suggest this as a feature suggestion.