Strides in Development of Medical Education (Jan 2010)
An Evaluation of Exam Questions Designed by Faculty Members Emphasizing on the Multiple Choice Question Structure Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences 2007
Abstract
Background & Objective : Evaluation of educational achievement is an important part of an educational process such an evaluation is possible via holding exams Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) as an objective testing method is the most common tool for evaluating students Hence this study was conducted to evaluate the exam questions designed by faculty members with emphasis on the MCQ structure in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences Methods : In this descriptive study questions designed by 197 nonclinician faculty members were analyzed Data was collected using a checklist including demographic information properties of exam questions and items related to comparing MCQs with design rules of such questions Results : The results revealed that 81% of the questions developed by faculty members were essay 5532% and 3654% were objective and a combination of essay and objective respectively Among a total of 5208 evaluated questions 6496% contained no structural flaw The most common flaws included ambiguous or unclear question stems (1594%) use of negative verb in the stem (1222%) using “all” or “none” among option (1085%) and use of blank space in the beginning or middle of the stem (1041%) Almost 90% of the MCQs were at cognitive level (taxonomy I) Conclusion : Due to the importance of developing standard questions corresponding to guidelines for MCQs in acceptable exams regular revision of exam questions and further training courses for designing questions is recommended
