A Flashcard Strategy to Help
Students Prepare for Three
Types of Multiple-Choice
Questions Commonly Found on
Introductory Psychology Tests
Drew C. Appleby, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
dappleby@iupui.edu
Multiple-choice questions can be written to test students’
mastery of course content and their critical thinking skills
(Appleby, 2008). The following three thinking skills are
commonly emphasized in introductory psychology classes and
are derived from Anderson and Krathwohl’s (2001) revision of
Bloom, Englehart, Furst, and Krathwohl’s (1956) taxonomy of
cognitive educational objectives.
1. to remember psychological terms, concepts, theories, and
methods in an accurate manner;
2. to understand information that has been remembered
accurately; and
3. to apply understood information to real-life situations involving
behaviors and mental processes related to this information.
I will use the term negative reinforcement as an
example of an important term because it is
1. a concept contained in all introductory psychology
textbooks,
2. a challenging term for students to comprehend,
3. a difficult term to differentiate from other terms
(e.g., positive reinforcement, punishment by
withdrawal, and punishment by application), and
4. often the subject of multiple-choice questions in
introductory psychology exams.
The following slide contains the definition of negative
reinforcement that appears in many introductory
psychology textbooks.
Negative reinforcement occurs when aversive
or unpleasant events are taken away after the
performance of a behavior.
The following three slides contain multiplechoice questions about negative reinforcement
that require students to remember, to
understand, and to apply this term.
Which of the following best describes negative
reinforcement?
a. Pleasant or enjoyable events are presented after the
performance of a behavior.
b. Aversive or unpleasant events are presented after
the performance of a behavior.
c. Pleasant or enjoyable events are taken away after
the performance of a behavior.
d. Aversive or unpleasant events are taken away after
the performance of a behavior.
_____ reinforcement takes place when a response leads
to the _____ of something bad.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Positive, removal
Negative, removal
Positive, presentation
Negative, presentation
Jason experiences nicotine withdrawal symptoms
(e.g., a slight headache) after he has not smoked a
cigarette for 20 minutes. When he smokes another
cigarette, this symptom disappears, but then reoccurs
20 minutes later when he must smoke still another
cigarette to make his headache go away again. Which
of the following operant conditioning terms best
explains why Jason continues to smoke, even though
he knows nonsmokers live an average of 10 years
longer than smokers?
a.
b.
c.
d.
positive reinforcement
negative reinforcement
punishment by application
punishment by withdrawal
Although the subject of all three of these
questions is negative reinforcement, each
question requires a student to use a different
critical thinking skill.
The first question requires the ability to remember information
accurately because the correct answer is the exact, word-forword definition of negative reinforcement taken directly from
the textbook.
Which of the following best describes negative reinforcement?
a. Pleasant or enjoyable events are presented after the
performance of a behavior.
b. Aversive or unpleasant events are presented after the
performance of a behavior.
c. Pleasant or enjoyable events are taken away after the
performance of a behavior.
d. Aversive or unpleasant events are taken away after the
performance of a behavior.
The second question requires the ability to understand
information that has been accurately remembered because the
student must be able to recognize a definition of negative
reinforcement when it is composed of different words than the
definition in the textbook.
_____ reinforcement occurs when a response leads to
the _____ of something bad.
a. Positive, removal
b. Negative, removal
c. Positive, presentation
d. Negative, presentation
The third question requires the ability to apply understood
information in a real-life situation that involves behaviors and
mental processes that relate to negative reinforcement.
Jason experiences nicotine withdrawal symptoms (e.g., a slight
headache) after he has not smoked a cigarette for 20 minutes.
When he smokes another cigarette, this symptom disappears,
but then reoccurs 20 minutes later when he must smoke still
another cigarette to make his headache go away again. Which of
the following operant conditioning terms best explains why
Jason continues to smoke, even though he knows nonsmokers
live an average of 10 years longer than smokers?
a.
b.
c.
d.
positive reinforcement
negative reinforcement
punishment by application
punishment by withdrawal
The remaining slides in this
presentation describe a study
strategy designed to enable students
to prepare for and answer these
three types of questions correctly.
Step #1
• Purchase a pack of 4x6 cards.
• Write each of the bold-faced terms that
appear in the chapter you are about to read
on one side of a card.
• Keep your cards in the order of the terms as
they appear in your book.
Step #2
• Begin to read your book, and stop when you
encounter the bold-face term you have
written on your first card.
• Let us pretend that the bold-face term written
on your first card is negative reinforcement.
• Follow the directions on the following slides.
Negative Reinforcement
(This is what one side of your card should look like.)
Copy the definition of the term word-for-word from your textbook on to
the top of the other side of your flash card.
Negative reinforcement occurs when aversive or unpleasant events are
taken away after the performance of a behavior.
Practice this definition by turning the card over to the term side, trying to
recall its word-for-word definition, and then turning the card to the
definition side to see if you remembered it. Repeat this process until you
can recall the definition accurately. This procedure will enable you to
know and to practice this definition so you can remember it accurately in
the future when you are asked to recognize it in its original form on a
multiple-choice question.
After you have successfully memorized the definition from the textbook,
the next step is to create your own definition that contains as few words
as possible from the textbook’s definition, and then write this under the
textbook’s definition.
Negative reinforcement occurs when something bad is removed after a
person or animal responds in a certain way.
Creating your own definition will help you move from simply memorizing
the textbook’s definition to actually being able to understand the
meaning of the term. After you master this definition with the procedure
described on the previous slide, you will own the definition of this term,
rather than just borrowing it from your textbook’s author.
After you have produced your own definition of the term, it is now time
for you to invent an original example of how you have experienced this
term in your own life.
My dog loves to have her ears scratched, and when she wants me to do
this, she scratches my arm with her sharp little claws until I start
scratching her ears. I now understand that my dog has been negatively
reinforcing me for scratching her ears because she stops doing something
I don’t like (i.e., scratching my arm) when I do what she wants me to do
(i.e., scratch her ears). My dog has used negative reinforcement to
operantly condition me to scratch her ears because every time she jumps
up on the couch next to me, I start scratching her ears so she doesn’t
scratch my arm.
Creating this example will help you apply your understanding of a term to
a real-life situation that is relevant and meaningful to you.
The other side of your card
should now look like the next slide.
Negative reinforcement occurs when aversive or unpleasant events are taken
away after the performance of a behavior.
Negative reinforcement happens when something bad is removed after a
person or animal responds in a certain way.
My dog loves to have her ears scratched, and when she wants me to do this,
she scratches my arm with her sharp little claws until I start scratching her
ears. I now understand that my dog has been negatively reinforcing me for
scratching her ears because she stops doing something I don’t like (i.e.,
scratching my arm) when I do what she wants me to do (i.e., scratch her ears).
My dog has used negative reinforcement to operantly condition me to scratch
her ears because every time she jumps up on the couch next to me, I start
scratching her ears so I can avoid having my arm scratched.
Now let us revisit our three original
multiple-choice questions to see if
the strategy described in this
presentation has helped you answer
these questions more successfully
than when you first saw them.
Which of the following best describes negative
reinforcement?
a. Pleasant or enjoyable events are presented after the
performance of a behavior.
b. Aversive or unpleasant events are presented after
the performance of a behavior.
c. Pleasant or enjoyable events are taken away after
the performance of a behavior.
d. Aversive or unpleasant events are taken away after
the performance of a behavior.
_____ reinforcement takes place when a response leads
to the _____ of something bad.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Positive, removal
Negative, removal
Positive, presentation
Negative, presentation
Jason experiences nicotine withdrawal symptoms
(e.g., a slight headache) after he has not smoked a
cigarette for 20 minutes. When he smokes another
cigarette, this symptom disappears, but then reoccurs
20 minutes later when he must smoke still another
cigarette to make his headache go away again. Which
of the following operant conditioning terms best
explains why Jason continues to smoke, even though
he knows nonsmokers live an average of 10 years
longer than smokers?
a.
b.
c.
d.
positive reinforcement
negative reinforcement
punishment by application
punishment by withdrawal
No study technique is perfect, and you will
encounter some multiple-choice questions
that require critical thinking skills other than
remembering, understanding, and applying.
However, these are the three skills most often
emphasized in introductory psychology
classes, so using the technique
described in
this presentation will provide you with a
strategy that will prepare you for the majority
of the multiple-choice questions you will
encounter on your tests.
I have two more recommendations
that can help you learn the
information you will need for
multiple-choice tests. The first is
based on the results of more than a
century of psychological research on
how humans learn and the second is
technology-based.
Recommendation #1
The distributed practice effect, which refers to
the benefits of spreading out study sessions
over time, is one of the most reliable findings
in the science of learning. If both Rosa and
Steve spend 4 hours studying the same
material, Rosa will retain the material longer
than Steve if she distributes her practice by
studying 1 hour a day for 4 days and he crams
all 4 of his study hours in one long study
marathon the night before the test.
To take advantage of the distributed practice
effect, it is important to know that your job is not
over when you have completed your flashcards
and practiced them once. To learn the information
they contain most successfully, you must use your
cards as a practice test on a number of occasions
separated by intervals of time. The longer the
intervals between your practice tests, the longer
you will retain the information you are trying to
learn. This is particularly important if you need to
retain information for a cumulative final exam.
Recommendation #2
You can create paper flashcards as I have previously
suggested or you can create them digitally with the
three online flashcard apps that appear on the following
slide. The advantages of these apps is that they are lowcost or free, they are mobile (you can download them to
your iPad, iPhone, iPod, or Android and study wherever
and whenever you want), they are social (you can share
your flashcards with your classmates and instructor),
and one of them (StudyBlue) even enables you to
benefit from the distributed practice effect by texting
you “study reminders” to begin short practice tests you
have scheduled to maximize your learning.
Quizlet
http://quizlet.com
StudyBlue
http://www.studyblue.com
FlashCardMachine
http://www.flashcardmachine.com
References
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning,
teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational
objectives. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Appleby, D. C. (2008). A cognitive taxonomy of multiple-choice questions. In L.
T. Benjamin (Ed.), Favorite activities for the teaching of psychology (pp.
119-123). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Bloom, B. S., Englehart, M. D., Furst, E. J., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956).
Taxonomy of educational objectives: Cognitive domain. New York: McKay.