MPRE Question-Writing Workshop

May 17–18, 2018 │ Madison, Wisconsin

On May 17–18, 2018, NCBE hosted a question-writing workshop for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination for a group of 23 professional responsibility experts—both practitioners and educators—from around the country.

The goal of the workshop was to train attendees as question drafters in order to expand the current MPRE Drafting Committee with the goal of increasing the number of questions in the MPRE question bank. Increasing the question bank is part of the preparations being undertaken before converting the MPRE from a paper-based to a computer-based delivery platform—a transition that will happen in phases and that will be completed in 2020.

NCBE President Judy Gundersen and MPRE Drafting Committee member Professor Bruce Green of Fordham University School of Law welcomed attendees to the workshop on Friday morning, and NCBE Director of Test Operations Matt Samuelson guided the attendees through the day of workshop sessions, which began with a presentation by NCBE Testing and Research staff members Drs. Joanne Kane and Andy Mroch on licensure testing basics and the function of multiple-choice questions.

The nuts and bolts of drafting multiple-choice questions was the focus of the next presentation by Professor Tim Davis of Wake Forest University School of Law, chair of the Contracts Drafting Committee for the Multistate Bar Examination, and it was followed by a presentation from five members of the MPRE Drafting Committee focusing on wording conventions for MPRE questions.

Following these presentations, attendees participated in small group multiple-choice question drafting exercises led by MPRE Program Director Nina Chang, MEE/MPT Associate Program Director Sonja Olson, MBE Program Director April Southwick, and five NCBE test editors. Attendees had also been encouraged to come to the workshop with drafts of one or two multiple-choice questions that they had written in advance, and to work with the NCBE test editors and MPRE Drafting Committee members at the workshop to fine-tune those drafts. Presentation and discussion of the questions written prior to and during the workshop took place in a session led by the MPRE Drafting Committee members in attendance, and the workshop concluded with a session focusing on the MPRE test development timeline.