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Evaluating and improving multiple choice papers: true–false questions in public health medicine
Author(s) -
Dixon R. A.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1994.tb02551.x
Subject(s) - quality (philosophy) , multiple choice , public health , psychology , computer science , medical education , medicine , statistics , mathematics , epistemology , pathology , significant difference , philosophy
Summary. The quality of a multiple true–false (MTF) examination paper in public health medicine for 149 clinical medical students was evaluated using predefined performance criteria to offer guidelines for improvement of such a paper. There were 35 questions, each with five true‐false branches, and the performance of the overall best 25% of candidates was compared for individual items with that of the overall worst 25%. To improve discrimination between best and worst candidates, 60% of items needed changes, and several indicators were used to identify how, usually because the branch was too easy (26%), unpopular (16%) or too hard (10%). A number of guidelines for writing good MTF questions and for improving them are suggested. The inequity is illustrated of marking systems which do not allocate a negative mark for incorrect answers equal in size to the positive mark for correct ones, with zero for unanswered questions or ‘don't know’ answers.