Glance at the quality of Multiple Choice Questions

Abstract

1. Assessment plays an important role in helping to interpret the magnitude of a student's ability and their own learning progress (Epstein, 2007), hence an essential component of the medical and nursing course curriculum. 2. Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are commonly used in assessments at undergraduate and postgraduate medical examinations (Kaur et al, 2016). MCQs are efficient, reliable and can be conveniently standardized and it allows for the assessment of higher-order cognitive skills such as interpretation, analytical and critical thinking, application or synthesis in the framework of Bloom's taxonomy (Kumar et al, 2021) 3. However, framing quality MCQs is a challenging task. Hence, item analysis is a handy tool for that provides input about validity and reliability of the item. 4. Item analysis involves the process of collecting, summarizing, and using information from student's responses to assess the quality of MCQs 5. At the Faculty of Medicine & Health Science, item analysis has been conducted on Modified Essay Questions (MEQ), Long Essay Question (LEQ), Objective Structured Practical Examination and Clinical Examination, OSPE and OSCE, respectively. Item analysis has not been done on MCQs