The Use of Management and Marketing Textbook Multiple-Choice Questions: A Case Study

Management and marketing professors classified multiple-choice questions in four widely adopted introductory textbooks in their respective disciplines according to the two basic cognitive levels of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives: knowledge and intellectual ability and skill. Eighty-seven percent of management and 65% of marketing questions measure the lower level, knowledge. Textbook test files classify the cognitive level of their questions, but overrate, on the average, 20% of management and 15% of marketing questions. These inaccuracies put unwary instructors at risk of selecting questions that require less thinking than they may intend in their educational objectives.