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Understanding Multiple-Choice Questions for Research Needs I Indonesia Research Institute Japan

How New Variants of Covid-19 in India Impact Indonesia’s Property Business
| Indonesia Research Institute Japan

“This post is written by Moh Mahrus Ali, Market Research & Business Development at PT Indonesia Research Institute Japan Jakarta, a global management consulting firm on business strategy”

What is a Multiple-Choice Question?

Single Choice, or Single Answer Questions are questions where the user is asked to select only one answer from a predefined set of responses from two or more options. This is one of the most common types of survey questions and is effective in determining the user’s main preference among a set of choices. The most common single-choice questions are Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ), in which users are given a list of responses and asked to choose the best answer. A Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) consists of (1) A stem – the text of the question; (2) Options – the choices provided after the stem; (3) The key – the correct answer in the list of options; (4) Distractors: the incorrect answers in the list of options. Respondents respond to multiple choice questions by indicating the alternative they believe is the best answer or completing the point.

MCQ can be used for various data analysis purposes which are divided into Levels of Learning. The Level of Learning consists of Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing, Applying, Understanding, and Remembering. This Level of Learning is divided into 3 parts according to the suitability level of using MCQ with the needs to be carried out, the 3 parts are Lower Order – in this part, MCQ is the most often method used for the process of Understanding and Remembering data; Higher Order –  in this part, MCQ can be used for Evaluating, Analyzing and Applying data purposes; and the last one is Highest Level, in this part for Creating and Evaluating needs, the MCQ method cannot be used.

How To Design Better Multiple-Choice Questions

Good multiple-choice questions are difficult to write. But writing good multiple-choice questions isn’t optional. Poorly written multiple-choice questions can compromise assessment data, confuse participants, and cause organizational and legal problems. The following suggestions for designing MCQs are organized into three sections: 1) general strategies, 2) designing stems, and 3) designing answers.

Good multiple-choice questions are difficult to write. But writing good multiple-choice questions isn’t optional. Poorly written multiple-choice questions can compromise assessment data, confuse participants, and cause organizational and legal problems. The following suggestions for designing MCQs are organized into three sections: 1) general strategies, 2) designing stems, and 3) designing answers.

  1. General Strategies
  • Write questions throughout the term. Multiple-choice question exams are challenging and time-consuming to create. You will find it easier if you write a few questions each week, perhaps after a lecture when the course material is still fresh in your mind.Instruct students to select the “best answer” rather than the “correct answer”.
  • By doing this, you acknowledge the fact that the distractors may have an element of truth to them and discourage arguments from students who may argue that their answer is correct as well.
  • Use familiar language. The question should use the same terminology that was used in the course. Avoid using unfamiliar expressions or foreign language terms, unless measuring knowledge of such language is one of the goals of the question. Students are likely to dismiss distractors with unfamiliar terms as incorrect.
  • Avoid giving verbal association clues from the stem in the key. If the key uses words that are very similar to words found in the stem, students are more likely to pick it as the correct answer.
  • Avoid trick questions. Questions should be designed so that students who know the material can find the correct answer. Questions designed to lead students to an incorrect answer, through misleading phrasing or by emphasizing an otherwise unimportant detail of the solution, violate this principle.
  • Avoid negative wording. Students often fail to observe negative wording and it can confuse them. As a result, students who are familiar with the material often make mistakes on negatively worded questions. In general, avoid having any negatives in the stem or the options. In the rare cases where you use negatives be sure to emphasize the key words by putting them in upper case, and bolding or underlining them.
  1. Designing Stems
  • Express the full problem in the stem. When creating the item, ask yourself if the students would be able to answer the question without looking at the options. This makes the purpose of the question clear.
  • Put all relevant material in the stem. Do not repeat in each of the alternatives information that can be included in the stem. This makes options easier to read and understand, and makes it easier for students to answer the question quickly.
  • Eliminate excessive wording and irrelevant information from the stem. Irrelevant information in the stem confuses students and leads them to waste time
  1. Designing Answer
  • Avoid lifting phrases directly from text or lecture. This becomes a simple recall activity for the student. Use new language as frequently as possible.
  • Write the correct answer before writing the distractions. This makes sure you pay enough attention to formulating the one clearly correct answer.
  • Answer options should be about the same length and parallel in grammatical structure. Too much detail or different grammatical structure can give the answer away.
  • Limit the number of answer options. Research shows that three-choice items are about as effective as four-choice items. Four choice items are the most popular, and never give more than five alternatives.
  • Distracters must be incorrect, but plausible. If you can, include among the distractor options that contain common errors. Students will then be motivated to listen to your explanations of why those options are incorrect.
  • To make distractors more plausible, use words that should be familiar to students. If a recognizable key word appears in the correct answer, it should appear in some or all of the distractors as well. Don’t let a verbal clue decrease the accuracy of your exam.
  • Help students see crucial words in the question. For example: “Which of the following is NOT an explicit norm?” Likewise, when you ask a similarly-worded question about two different things, always highlight the difference between the questions. 8. If it is too easy to eliminate one or two options, then the question loses much of its measurement value. If you must come up with one more distracter, consider either offering a true statement that does not answer the question and/or a jargon-ridden option that is meaningless to someone who understands the concept.

We, the Indonesian Research Institute Japan, will assist investors to carry out further research on all existing business opportunities. The Indonesian-Japanese Research Institute offers all services from library research, in-depth interviews, to market surveys to better understand a business research topic or marketing research. One of the methods used by the Indonesia Research Institute Jakarta to conduct marketing research is the Multiple-Choice Questions method. This method is used with the hope of obtaining maximum results regarding a case, especially during the analyzing, applying, understanding, and remembering data stages.

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References

Abramovitz, B., Berezina, M., & Berman, A. (2005). How Not to Formulate Multiple Choice Problems. International Journal Of Mathematical Education In Science And Technology, 36(4).

Bottomley, S., & Denny, P. (2011). A Participatory Learning Approach to Biochemistry Using Student Authored and Evaluated Multiple-Choice Questions. Biochemistry And Molecular Biology Education, 39(5).

Chesbro, R. (2010). Strategies for the Meaningful Evaluation of Multiple-Choice Assessments. Science Scope, 34(2).

Cloonan, C. A., & Hutchinson, J. S. (2011). A Chemistry Concept Reasoning Test. Chemistry Education Research And Practice, 12(2).

Fenna, D. S. (2004). Assessment of Foundation Knowledge: Are Students Confident in Their Ability?. European Journal Of Engineering Education, 29(2).

Golda, S. (2011). A Case Study on Multiple-Choice Testing in Anatomical Sciences. Anatomical Sciences Education, 4(1).

Scharf, E. M., & Baldwin, L. P. (2007). Assessing multiple choice question (MCQ) tests – a mathematical perspective. Active Learning In Higher Education, 8(1).

Tellinghuisen, J., & Sulikowski, M. M. (2008). Does the Answer Order Matter on MultipleChoice Exams? Journal Of Chemical Education, 85(4).

Yuretich, R. F. (2003). Encouraging Critical Thinking: Measuring Skills in Large Introductory Science Classes. Journal Of College Science Teaching, 33(3).

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Authored by : Fitri Aulia | 22 December 2020

Recent Property Development

The Covid-19 pandemic has dealt a quite severe blow to the property business sector in 2020. During the PSBB period, business activities were very sluggish and it can be said that some business actors suffered severe losses.

However, entering the new normal period, the economic activity in several sectors including property has begun to revive from the previous period. The role of the government triggers the revival of Indonesia’s property business activities.

 Government Stimulus

The assistance provided by the government is in the form of subsidies or incentives for interest subsidies to debtors of public housing credit (KPR), which is contained in the Minister of Finance Regulation (PMK) Number 138 / PMK.05 / 2020 and amendments to PMK 85 / PMK.05 / 2020 regarding the guidelines for providing interest subsidies in the effort to implement the National Economic Recovery program.

In early March 2020, the Government decided to increase the allocation of housing financing assistance by IDR 1.5 trillion for Low-Income Communities (MBR). This was stated by the Director General of Infrastructure Financing of the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) Eko Djoeli Heripoerwanto in a webinar, Wednesday (29/7/2020).

In addition, the Government also has Bank BTN as their partner-collaboration to implement their OMH Program aimed at Low-Income Communities (MBR) with low interest rates and low installments for the purchase of a prosperous tread house and a welfare apartment.

Bank BTN noted, in 2015 they have provided housing financing assistance totaling 474,099 units. Then in 2016 as many as 595,540 units, in 2017 to 666,806 units, in 2018 to 755,093 units, and in 2019 to 735,749 units.

As of September 2020, BTN has provided home ownership credit support (KPR) of 93,448 units which cost as much as Rp. 15.6 trillion. These support provided by BTN is significant for the survival of the business property sector.

BTN commitment on supporting business property has not slackened. In fact, during the pandemic, BTN continuously provides support for the government program.The distribution of subsidized KPR is still a mainstay of BTN for the One Million Houses program.

 

Source : Bank BTN (visit : https://www.btn.co.id/id/Conventional/Product-Links/Produk-BTN/Kredit-Konsumer/Pinjaman-Bangunan/KPR-BTN-Subsidi)

Positive Trend in Q3  2020

There is a positive trend during Q3 2020 after it drastically dropped earlier in the year, indicates there is potential for the revival of Commercial Property Demand in Q4 2020 and the next Q1 2021.

Source : Bank Indonesia

Hotels and convention halls are two sectors whose demand has risen quite drastically in the Q3 after falling badly in the previous quarter. This demonstrates positive potential for its development in the future. Meanwhile, the demand of apartment remains low and still struggles to revive until now.

Growth of Commercial Property Demand in Jabodetabek

Overall in Jabodetabek, the commercial property sector also experienced a positive increase during Q3 2020.

In Jakarta, all commercial property demands show positivism with hotels being the most prominent in their development at Q3 2020. After previously shows a negative number, the total index in Q3 has at least increased to be positive.

Source : Bank Indonesia

 Meanwhile, the growth in the total commercial property index jumped drastically in Bogor, Depok and Bekasi. Same case with Jakarta, its hotel sector are also the most prominent in reviving, at least in the Q3 2020.

Source : Bank Indonesia

As we can see on charts above, the hotel segment shows a great improvement in demand. This was driven by various kinds of promotions offered by hotels to adapt in this situation such as providing huge discount, staycation packages, working from hotels offer, and wedding reception packages.

Why Hotels?

As Indonesia gradually eases lockdown restrictions, the hotel occupancy rates across the country including Jakarta, have slowly started to pick up. However this is not without several efforts and sacrifices driven by people in the hotels sector to improve and revive the hospitality business sector in Indonesia.

To get through this hard times, efficiency and innovation are the main keys. Therefore, there are several trends created specifically to adapt to this era. Hotels competing with each other to offer a flood of discounts. To further intensify its sales strategy, there are several e-commerce platforms that is becoming a  great place to advertise rooms and staycation packages, such as Traveloka. The Buy Now Stay Later also sticks to this trend.

Hotels discounts on Traveloka (Source : Traveloka)

Another new trend is the Work From Hotel (WFH). As you might know, the abbreviation of WFH was initially stands for Work From Home. To connect the dots, Working From Hotel then exist and created because there are more and more office workers are getting bored with the atmosphere of their house and desperate to look for a new atmosphere. It’s a trend where hotels prepare rooms, complete with equipment and facilities to work (e.g : Wi-Fi , stationer, and free printing facilities,etc).

Source : Instagram @harrisfxsudirman and @arunasenggigi

During the transitional PSBB period, indoor wedding receptions are allowed to be held again after previously was banned temporarily due to the massive increase of the Covid-19 spread. This becomes the opportunity that triggers the revival for the hotel business.

However, this permission is also accompanied by the requirement to fulfill and comply with the health protocols made by the government. These includes the limitation of attendees to a maximum of 25 percent of normal capacity. Then, the seating distance for visitors is set at least 1.5 meters. Visitors are also prohibited from passing by or changing seats. The eating and drinking utensils must be sterilized, while the serving of food is prohibited from using a buffet. Last but not least, the wedding staffs are required to wear a mask, face shield and gloves.

One of the breakthrough in this trend was the make of  “Virtual Wedding” ever since June 2020. As this was the case held by The Sunan Hotel Solo, which offer a virtual wedding service package for 44.5 million. The event is only attended by the couple and their family members, meanwhile guests are able to attend the wedding virtually through various platforms such as Zoom, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, while enjoying food sent by the hotel to their residences.

                                                                                                          Source: The Sunan Hotels Solo

Finally, we might conclude that the property business in Indonesia has the potential to develop more despite the massive impact it has taken from pandemic outburst. Combining the stakeholders effort and the government’s support to stimulate this sector are expected to help revive the business sector in the future.

 

References

Bank Indonesia. (2020). Perkembangan Properti Komersial (PPKOM).

Kementerian Pekerjaan Umum dan Perumahan Rakyat. (2020, November 3). Tingkatkan Kepemilikan Hunian Layak, Realisasi Program Sejuta Rumah Hingga Akhir Oktober 2020 Capai 601.637 Unit. Retrieved from https://www.pu.go.id/berita/view/18970/tingkatkan-kepemilikan-hunian-layak-realisasi-program-sejuta-rumah-hingga-akhir-oktober-2020-capai-601-637-unit

Kementerian Pekerjaan Umum dan Perumahan Rakyat . (2020, January 3). Capaian Pembangunan Rumah Tembus 1,25 Juta Unit. Retrieved from https://perumahan.pu.go.id/berita/view/227/capaian-pembangunan-rumah-tembus-1-25-juta-unit

Kompas. (2020, July 29). Alokasi Tambahan Rp 1,5 Triliun untuk Perumahan Terkait 3 Program. Retrieved from https://properti.kompas.com/read/2020/07/29/191334021/alokasi-tambahan-rp-15-triliun-untuk-perumahan-terkait-3-program?page=all

BUMN inc. (2020). Target Penyaluran KPR Bank BTN Naik Menjadi 300.000 Unit Per Tahun. Retrieved from http://bumninc.com/target-penyaluran-kpr-bank-btn-naik-menjadi-300-000-unit-per-tahun/?more=2