OF THE MULTIPLE-CHOICE AND TRUE-FALSE FORMATS
The present study was initiated to investigate the comparability of multiple-choice and true-false item formats when the time necessary to respond to each type of item was equated empirically. Also investigated was the relative difficulty of multiple-choice (MC), true true-false (Tf), and false true-false (tF) items mea suring the same content. Results indicated that true-false items result in a less reliable test than one using a four-option MC format, even when empirically determined differences in time needed to answer the respective formats were taken into account. When scores were corrected for guessing, the MC items were significantly easier than the true-false format.