A Comparison of Deaf Students' Performance on True-False and Multiple-Choice Items

Although many studies have reported on the vocabulary level and syntactical structures that cause difficulty for hearing-impaired students, only recently have researchers interested in the problems of assessing the classroom learning of deaf students evidenced an interest in the item format used on the evaluation instrument. Students enrolled in a course offered through the Physics Learning Center at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf were given a 100-item final examination in which six items appeared in both a true-false and a multiple-choice version. Results of this investigation indicate that item format alone may be a factor affecting the performance of deaf students and that different conclusions may be possible concerning specific course objectives mastered. A need for more research in this important area is indicated.