Carefully designed multiple choice tests can help teachers to quickly determine what students don't understand

Over the last 20 years, US schools have widely adopted annual student testing, a move which many researchers believe may have been of little benefit to students' educational outcomes. Julian R. Betts, Youjin Hahn and Andrew C. Zau examine the impact of a different type of mathematics testing - one which is aimed at determining students' strengths and weaknesses in math. They find that since 2000 the Mathematics Diagnostic Testing Project in California’s second largest school district has increased student’s state test score by up to 4 percentage points. They attribute these increases to the detailed information and insights into student performance the tests provide compared to more traditional examinations.