What if I don’t know the answer? - Fifth-grade Students’Responses to Uncertainty in Test-Taking

Oct 15, 2026

Fifth-grade students watched a short video and then answered multiple-choice items, including some with no correct option among the choices. Using computer-supported stimulated recall and semi-structured interviews, the study tested three common assumptions about students’ thinking when they responded despite uncertainty. Results showed that no single assumption explained all students. Many believed leaving blank answers was unacceptable, partly because it could signal lack of effort, and most students recognized uncertainty while a few did not.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages26

Reading Time1 h 6 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Perceptions of Uncertainty

Acknowledgements

“What if I don’t know the answer?” Fifth-grade Students’Responses to Uncertainty in Test-Taking Ruth A. Childs Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto Susan Elgie Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto Amanda Brijmohan Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto Jinli Yang Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 42:4 (2019)©2019 Canadian Society for the Study of Education/ Société canadienne pour l’étude de l’éducation [www.cje-rce.ca](www.cje-rce.ca) Abstract Fifth-grade students watched a short video and then responded to multiple-choice items, including several without correct answers. Based on computer-supported stimulated recall and semi-structured interviews, we tested three common assumptions about what students are thinking when they respond to multiple-choice items in spite of being uncertain of the correct answer. We found that none of the assumptions applied to all students. For example, many of the students believed leaving items blank was unacceptable, in part because it might create the impression that they were not trying on a test. Furthermore, although most students recognized when they were uncertain, a few did not. Keywords: multiple-choice items, response processes, uncertainty, meta-memory, guessing Résumé Des étudiants de 5e année ont visionné un court vidéo puis ont répondu à un questionnaire à choix multiple, dont certaines questions ne contenaient pas la bonne réponse parmi les choix. Sur la base de rappels stimulés par ordinateur et d’entrevues semi-structurées, nous avons testé trois présomptions communes concernant ce que pensent les étudiants lorsqu’ilsrépondent à des questionnaires à choix multiple devant l’incertitude qu’une réponse est bonne. Les résultats démontrent qu’aucune de ces présomptions ne s’applique à tous les étudiants. Par exemple, plusieurs d’entre eux pensaient qu’il était inacceptable de laisserune question sans réponse, en partie parce que cela pouvait créer l’impression qu’ils n’ont pas essayé. Par ailleurs, alors que la plupart des étudiants ont reconnu lorsqu’ils étaientincertains, ce n’est pas le cas de tous. Mots-clés : questions à choix multiple, processus de réponse, incertitude, métamémoire, deviner Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 42:4 (2019) [www.cje-rce.ca](www.cje-rce.ca) Acknowledgements Thank you to the fifth-grade students and their parents. Thank you to Amanda K. Ferguson, Marija Glisic, Christine Pouliot, Sara Rattanasithy, Tanya Scerbina, Tian Tang, Mike Tecson, and Jingshun Zhang for their contributions as research assistants on this project. Funding for this study was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 42:4 (2019) [www.cje-rce.ca](www.cje-rce.ca) Introduction Imagine someone is answering a series of multiple-choice items in the form of a test. What the test-taker responds to each item is easy to study: We can look at the answer sheet or, if the test was administered on the computer, an electronic file. If the item has four response options labelled A to D, the response record will contain a series of those letters and, possibly, blanks where the test-taker did not respond. How the test-taker responds is more difficult to study. They may have read the item and selected the response option they believed was correct. They may have guessed, with or without first reading and trying to answer the item. If guessing, they may have chosen randomly among all of the response options, or eliminated some options as unlikely before choosing among those that remained. They may have chosen to leave the item blank. To complicate matters further, they may have used different approaches for different parts of the test. Although diffic

FAQs

What did fifth-grade students do during the study?

Students watched a short video and then responded to multiple-choice items, including some where the correct answer was not present among the options.

Which method was used to understand students’ thinking?

The study used computer-supported stimulated recall and semi-structured interviews to examine students’ response processes.

What were the main findings about common assumptions?

None of the tested assumptions applied to all students. For example, many students viewed leaving items blank as unacceptable, and not all students recognized when they were uncertain.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Anna Hans