Effect of random item ordering in multiple choice tests on the academic achievement of online learners

This study examined the effect of randomly ordered multiple-choice test forms on students' academic achievement. This study was carried out with a true experimental design. All students participating in the study received their training through online learning. The study group of the research consists of 2932 freshman university students studying at different faculties of a state university in the Fall Semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. A 20-item multiple-choice test was used to measure the student's academic achievement. Four different test forms were generated by randomly ordering the items. One-way ANOVA was used to test whether there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the students who took different test forms. Additionally, test statistics of different test forms were examined. The findings showed no significant difference between the students' mean scores in different test forms (1) and that the score distributions were balanced (2). These findings indicate that the different test forms generated by random ordering are equivalent. The similarity of the test statistics of the different test forms also supports these findings. As a result of this study, different test forms were created through random ordering do not affect students' academic achievements. This study suggests educators, test developers, and administrators create different test forms through randomization as a cheating prevention method in multiple-choice tests.