بررسي تحليلي آزمونهاي چهارگزينه اي دانشكده پزشكي دانشگاه علوم پزشكي مشهد در نيمسال دوم 80-79

Analytical Assessment of Mutiple-Choice Tests at Mashhad Medical School

Multiple-choice tests are the most popular objective tests utilized in medical schools. The aim of test analysis is to identify strength and weakness of tests. Since there is no evidence on assessing the validity and reliability of paper and pencil tests in the filed of medicine, this study was conducted to analyze the multiple-choice tests used at Mashhad Medical School in 2002. In this descriptive study, we analyzed the data obtained from 24 multiple-choice question tests Mashhad Medical School. Investigating 1496 questions, difficulty and discriminative indexes were calculated for each question. We also measured the reliability and standard error of measurement for all the tests. The data analysis was done by SPSS software. The mean of tests reliability was 0.72 ±0.13 (min 0.4 & max 0.93). Concerning basic and clinical sciences. The mean of the tests reliability was a calculated as 0.88 ±0.03 and 0.68 ± 0.12 respectively. There was a significant difference between clinical and basic sciences fields (P=0.0001). The mean of standard errors of measurement was 3.51±l.l I (min 2.15 & max 5.78). For basic sciences field this parameter was measured as 2.8±0.4 and for the part of clinical sciences, it amounted to 3.1±l .1. There was also a significant difference between clinical and basic fields (P = 0.0001). In 52.2% of cases, difficulty indexes of questions were unacceptable. On the other hand 7.6% of questions were absolutely difficult and 44.6% were extremely easy. The results also have revealed that 49.3% of the questions lacked the adequate discriminative ability to discern between poor and good the examinees. Overall, only one third of multiple-choice questions had difficulty and discriminative indexes in the appropriate areas. According to findings, improvement of test quality and evaluation process is necessary; so statistical results of test analysis should be applied for later tests.