scholarly journals Difficulty index, discrimination index, sensitivity and specificity of long case and multiple choice questions to predict medical students’ examination performance

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahisham Taib ◽  
Muhamad Saiful Bahri Yusoff
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mehran Hosseini ◽  
Reza Rahmati ◽  
Hamid Sepehri ◽  
Vahid Tajari ◽  
Mahdi Habibi-koolaee

Abstract Background: The purpose of this pilot was to compare the multiple-choice test statistics of medical and dental students' exams between free and tuition-paying.Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted at Golestan University of Medical Sciences in Iran in 2020. The study population included students of medicine and dentistry. A total of 56 exams were selected in two student groups of free and tuition-paying admission in the physiology course. The results of quantitative evaluation of tests were used as the data of this study. The variables included difficulty index, discrimination index, the degree of difficulty, score variance, and Kuder-Richardson correlation coefficient. Results: There were 32 medical and 24 dentistry exams. The cumulative total number of questions in these exams was 437 and 330 multiple choice questions, respectively. The number of medical students participating in the free-tuition and paying-tuition admissions was 1336 and 1076, and for dental students, these numbers were 395 and 235, respectively. There were no significant differences in normalized adjusted exams scores between two admission groups in both medical and dentistry tests. The mean of discrimination index in the free-tuition group was higher than in the paying-tuition group. The interaction between the type of admission and the field of study was significant for the discrimination index. This difference was more in tuition-free dental students than tuition-free medical students and tuition-paying dental students. Conclusion: The type of student admission has no significant effect on student assessments in multiple-choice exams in matched educational conditions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 9-10
Author(s):  
Bhoomika R. Chauhan ◽  
Jayesh Vaza ◽  
Girish R. Chauhan ◽  
Pradip R. Chauhan

Multiple choice questions are nowadays used in competitive examination and formative assessment to assess the student's eligibility and certification.Item analysis is the process of collecting,summarizing and using information from students' responses to assess the quality of test items.Goal of the study was to identify the relationship between the item difficulty index and item discriminating index in medical student's assessment. 400 final year medical students from various medical colleges responded 200 items constructed for the study.The responses were assessed and analysed for item difficulty index and item discriminating power. Item difficulty index an item discriminating power were analysed by statical methods to identify correlation.The discriminating power of the items with difficulty index in 40%-50% was the highest. Summary and Conclusion:Items with good difficulty index in range of 30%-70% are good discriminator.


Author(s):  
Ajeet Kumar Khilnani ◽  
Rekha Thaddanee ◽  
Gurudas Khilnani

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are routinely used for formative and summative assessment in medical education. Item analysis is a process of post validation of MCQ tests, whereby items are analyzed for difficulty index, discrimination index and distractor efficiency, to obtain a range of items of varying difficulty and discrimination indices. This study was done to understand the process of item analysis and analyze MCQ test so that a valid and reliable MCQ bank in otorhinolaryngology is developed.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> 158 students of 7<sup>th</sup> Semester were given an 8 item MCQ test. Based on the marks achieved, the high achievers (top 33%, 52 students) and low achievers (bottom 33%, 52 students) were included in the study. The responses were tabulated in Microsoft Excel Sheet and analyzed for difficulty index, discrimination index and distractor efficiency.  </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> The mean (SD) difficulty index (Diff-I) of 8 item test was 61.41% (11.81%). 5 items had a very good difficulty index (41% to 60%), while 3 items were easy (Diff-I &gt;60%). There was no item with Diff-I &lt;30%, i.e. a difficult item, in this test. The mean (SD) discrimination index (DI) of the test was 0.48 (0.15), and all items had very good discrimination indices of more than 0.25. Out of 24 distractors, 6 (25%) were non-functional distractors (NFDs). The mean (SD) distractor efficiency (DE) of the test was 74.62% (23.79%).</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Item analysis should be an integral and regular activity in each department so that a valid and reliable MCQ question bank is developed.</p>


Author(s):  
Manju K. Nair ◽  
Dawnji S. R.

Background: Carefully constructed, high quality multiple choice questions can serve as effective tools to improve standard of teaching. This item analysis was performed to find the difficulty index, discrimination index and number of non functional distractors in single best response type questions.Methods: 40 single best response type questions with four options, each carrying one mark for the correct response, was taken for item analysis. There was no negative marking. The maximum marks was 40. Based on the scores, the evaluated answer scripts were arranged with the highest score on top and the least score at the bottom. Only the upper third and lower third were included. The response to each item was entered in Microsoft excel 2010. Difficulty index, Discrimination index and number of non functional distractors per item were calculated.Results: 40 multiple choice questions and 120 distractors were analysed in this study. 72.5% items were good with a difficulty index between 30%-70%. 25% items were difficult and 2.5% items were easy. 27.5% items showed excellent discrimination between high scoring and low scoring students. One item had a negative discrimination index (-0.1). There were 9 items with non functional distractors.Conclusions: This study emphasises the need for improving the quality of multiple choice questions. Hence repeated evaluation by item analysis and modification of non functional distractors may be performed to enhance standard of teaching in Pharmacology.


Author(s):  
Amit P. Date ◽  
Archana S. Borkar ◽  
Rupesh T. Badwaik ◽  
Riaz A. Siddiqui ◽  
Tanaji R. Shende ◽  
...  

Background: Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are a common method for formative and summative assessment of medical students. Item analysis enables identifying good MCQs based on difficulty index (DIF I), discrimination index (DI), distracter efficiency (DE). The objective of this study was to assess the quality of MCQs currently in use in pharmacology by item analysis and develop a MCQ bank with quality items.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 148 second year MBBS students at NKP Salve institute of medical sciences from January 2018 to August 2018. Forty MCQs twenty each from the two term examination of pharmacology were taken for item analysis A correct response to an item was awarded one mark and each incorrect response was awarded zero. Each item was analyzed using Microsoft excel sheet for three parameters such as DIF I, DI, and DE.Results: In present study mean and standard deviation (SD) for Difficulty index (%) Discrimination index (%) and Distractor efficiency (%) were 64.54±19.63, 0.26±0.16 and 66.54±34.59 respectively. Out of 40 items large number of MCQs has acceptable level of DIF (70%) and good in discriminating higher and lower ability students DI (77.5%). Distractor efficiency related to presence of zero or 1 non-functional distrator (NFD) is 80%.Conclusions: The study showed that item analysis is a valid tool to identify quality items which regularly incorporated can help to develop a very useful, valid and a reliable question bank.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Surajit Kundu ◽  
Jaideo M Ughade ◽  
Anil R Sherke ◽  
Yogita Kanwar ◽  
Samta Tiwari ◽  
...  

Background: Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are the most frequently accepted tool for the evaluation of comprehension, knowledge, and application among medical students. In single best response MCQs (items), a high order of cognition of students can be assessed. It is essential to develop valid and reliable MCQs, as flawed items will interfere with the unbiased assessment. The present paper gives an attempt to discuss the art of framing well-structured items taking kind help from the provided references. This article puts forth a practice for committed medical educators to uplift the skill of forming quality MCQs by enhanced Faculty Development programs (FDPs). Objectives: The objective of the study is also to test the quality of MCQs by item analysis. Methods: In this study, 100 MCQs of set I or set II were distributed to 200 MBBS students of Late Shri Lakhiram Agrawal Memorial Govt. Medical College Raigarh (CG) for item analysis for quality MCQs. Set I and Set II were MCQs which were formed by 60 medical faculty before and after FDP, respectively. All MCQs had a single stem with three wrong and one correct answers. The data were entered in Microsoft excel 2016 software to analyze. The difficulty index (Dif I), discrimination index (DI), and distractor efficiency (DE) were the item analysis parameters used to evaluate the impact on adhering to the guidelines for framing MCQs. Results: The mean calculated difficulty index, discrimination index, and distractor efficiency were 56.54%, 0.26, and 89.93%, respectively. Among 100 items, 14 items were of higher difficulty level (DIF I < 30%), 70 were of moderate category, and 16 items were of easy level (DIF I > 60%). A total of 10 items had very good DI (0.40), 32 had recommended values (0.30 - 0.39), and 25 were acceptable with changes (0.20 - 0.29). Of the 100 MCQs, there were 27 MCQs with DE of 66.66% and 11 MCQs with DE of 33.33%. Conclusions: In this study, higher cognitive-domain MCQs increased after training, recurrent-type MCQ decreased, and MCQ with item writing flaws reduced, therefore making our results much more statistically significant. We had nine MCQs that satisfied all the criteria of item analysis.


Author(s):  
Durgesh Prasad Sahoo ◽  
Rakesh Singh

Background: Multiple choice questions (MCQs) or Items forms an important part to assess students in different educational streams. It is an objective mode of assessment which requires both the validity and reliability depending on the characteristics of its items i.e. difficulty index, discrimination index and distracter efficiency. To evaluate MCQs or items and build a bank of high-quality test items by assessing with difficulty index, discrimination index and distracter efficiency and also to revise/store or remove errant items based on obtained results.Methods: A preliminary examination of Third MBBS Part-1 was conducted by Department of Community Medicine undertaken for 100 students. Two separate papers with total 30 MCQs or items and 90 distractors each in both papers were analyzed and compared. Descriptive as well as inferential statistics were used to analyze the data.Results: The findings show that most of the items were falling in acceptable range of difficulty level however some items were rejected due to poor discrimination index. Overall paper I was found to be more difficult and more discriminatory, but its distractor efficiency was slightly low as compared to paper II.Conclusions: The analysis helped us in selection of quality MCQs having high discrimination and average difficulty with three functional distractors. This should be incorporated into future evaluations to improve the test score and properly discriminate among the students.


Author(s):  
Abhijeet S. Ingale ◽  
Purushottam A. Giri ◽  
Mohan K. Doibale

Background: Item analysis is the process of collecting, summarizing and using information from students’ response to assess the quality of test items. However it is said that MCQs emphasize recall of factual information rather than conceptual understanding and interpretation of concepts. There is more to writing good MCQs than writing good questions. The objectives of the study was to assess the item and test quality of multiple choice questions and to deal with the learning difficulties of students, identify the low achievers in the test. Methods: The hundred MBBS students from Government medical college were examined. A test comprising of thirty MCQs was administered. All items were analysed for Difficulty Index, Discrimination Index and Distractor Efficiency. Data entered in MS Excel 2007 and SPSS 21 analysed with statistical test of significance. Results: Majority 80% items difficulty index is within acceptable range. 63% items showed excellent discrimination Index. Distractor efficiency was overall satisfactory. Conclusions: Multiple choice questions with average difficulty and also having high discriminating power with good distracter efficiency should be incorporated into student’s examination. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-28
Author(s):  
Lok Raj Sharma

The prime purpose of this research article is to analyze 20 multiple choice questions (MCQs) regarding the consonant and vowel sounds of English having asked to the Bachelor of Education (B. Ed) first year major English students in their achievement examination conducted at Makawanpur Multiple Campus, Hetauda, Nepal in 2020. The researcher employed 33% students from the group of high achievers from the top and 33% students from the group of low achievers from the bottom by including 18 students from the population of 27 students. Each item was analyzed for difficulty index (DIF I), discrimination index (DI), and distractor effectiveness (DE). 3 (15%) questions fell in the range of the difficulty index of (0.20 – 0.39). 14 (70%) questions fell in the range of the difficulty index of (0.40 – 0.59).  2 (10%) questions fell in the range of the difficulty index of (0.60 – 0.79).  1 (5%) Question fell in the range of the difficulty index of (0.80 – 0.89).  2 (10%) questions lay in the discrimination index of (0.20-0.29) and 18 (90%) questions lay in the discrimination index of    5 (25%) questions had one non-functional distractor, whereas 15 (75%) questions had zero nun-functional distractor. Out of 60 distractors, 5 (8.34%) distractors were non-functional and 55 (91.66%) distractors were functional. It was found that most of the multiple choice questions were reliable and valid.


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