Open AccessItem Analysis of Multiple Choice Questions in Pharmacology
Author(s) -
Imtiaz Uddin,
Izhar Uddin,
Izaz Ur Rehman,
Muhammad Siyar,
Usman Mehboob
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of saidu medical college
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1819-4583
DOI - 10.52206/jsmc.2020.10.2.320
Subject(s) - multiple choice , discriminative model , index (typography) , quality (philosophy) , psychology , medicine , medical education , computer science , significant difference , artificial intelligence , philosophy , epistemology , world wide web
Background: MCQs type assessment in medical education is replacing old theory style. There are concerns regarding the quality of the Multiple Choice Questions.Objectives: To determine the quality of Multiple Choice Questions by item analysis. Material and Methods: Study was a cross sectional descriptive .Fifty Multiple Choice Questions in the final internal evaluation exams in 2015 of Pharmacology at Bacha khan Medical College were analyzed. The quality of each Multiple Choice Questions item was assessed by the Difficulty index (Dif.I), Discriminative Index (D.I) and Distracter Efficiency (D.E).Results: Multiple Choice Questions that were of moderate difficulty were 66%. Easy were 4% and high difficulty were 30%.Reasons for high difficult Multiple Choice Questions were analyzed as Item Writing Flaws 41%, Irreverent Difficulty 36% and C2 level 23%. Discrimination Index shows that majority of MCQs were of Excellent Level (DI greater than 0.25) i.e 52 , Good 32% . (DI=2.15-0.25), Poor 16%. MCQs Distracter Effectiveness (DE)= 4, 3,2,1 were 52%, 34%, 14%, and 0% respectively. Conclusion: Item analysis gives us different parameters with reasons to recheck MCQ pool and teaching programme. High proportions of difficult and sizable amount of poor discriminative indices MCQs were the finding in this study and need to be resolved