Construction of Multiple Choice Questions Before and After An Educational Intervention

Introduction: Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences of Bhutan, established in 2014, has ushered in a new era in medical education in Bhutan. Multiple Choice Questions are a common means of written assessment in medical education. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study conducted at the Faculty of Postgraduate Medicine, KGUMSB, Thimphu in December 2016. A total of 8 MCQs were prepared by four teaching faculties from different fields who had no prior training on construction of MCQs. It was delivered to a group of 16 randomly selected intern doctors. A 2 hours long workshop on construction of MCQs was conducted. After the workshop, the same MCQs were modified according to standard guidelines on developing MCQs and were tested in the same group of intern doctors. An analysis on the performance, difficulty factor, discrimination index and distractor analysis was done on the two sets of MCQs using Microsoft Excel and SPSS 20.0. Results: For the pre- and post-workshop questions respectively, the pass percentage was 69.8% (11) and 81.3% (13), difficulty factor was 0.51 and 0.53, discrimination index was 0.59 and 0.47, distractor effectiveness was 83.3% and 74.9%. Conclusions: The workshop on MCQ development apparently seemed highly valuable and effective in changing the learning and performances of medical educators in the development of MCQs. Keywords: difficulty factor; discrimination index; faculty development; medical education.

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Quality of multiple choice questions in undergraduate pharmacology assessments in a teaching hospital of Kerala, India: an item analysis

International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology ◽

10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20172001 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 (6) ◽

pp. 1265

Author(s):

Manju K. Nair ◽

Dawnji S. R.

Keyword(s):

Item Analysis ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Discrimination Index ◽

Response Type ◽

Multiple Choice Questions ◽

Microsoft Excel ◽

Best Response ◽

Difficulty Index ◽

Upper Third

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.

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Item analysis as tool to validate multiple choice question bank in pharmacology

International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology ◽

10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20194106 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (9) ◽

pp. 1999

Author(s):

Amit P. Date ◽

Archana S. Borkar ◽

Rupesh T. Badwaik ◽

Riaz A. Siddiqui ◽

Tanaji R. Shende ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Item Analysis ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Incorrect Response ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Discrimination Index ◽

Multiple Choice Questions ◽

Medical Sciences ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Lower Ability ◽

Difficulty Index

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.

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Miscue Analysis of Oral Reading Among Non-Proficient Malaysian ESL Learners

Journal of English Language and Literature ◽

10.17722/jell.v2i2.34 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 179-185

Author(s):

Adeena Deepa Ramakrishna Pillai ◽

Shamala Paramasivam

Keyword(s):

Oral Reading ◽

Reading Ability ◽

Direct Method ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Miscue Analysis ◽

Multiple Choice Questions ◽

Microsoft Excel ◽

Reading Material ◽

Complex Words ◽

Esl Learners

Reading is a vital skill. Research has shown that proficient learners usually have a greater comprehension of the reading material. This study focuses on non-proficient learners’ oral reading as a direct method of assessing their reading ability. Miscue analysis is used as a tool to gather information and measure strategies used in reading and comprehending a given material. The study investigates the types and frequencies of miscues made by learners when they orally read texts and assesses learners’ comprehension based on the oral reading through the use of multiple-choice questions. The number of miscues made and the scores for the multiple choice questions are patterned using Microsoft Excel program and are converted into percentages. This study found that when the number of miscues made by the learners reduced during the oral reading process, the scores on the comprehension section did not necessarily improve. The types of miscues made by learners were omission of words namely plural and past-tense endings of verbs, substitution of words such as the pronoun ‘she’ with ‘he’, and hesitation especially with complex words. The findings imply that learners have language problems in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and the use of reading strategies.

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