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Link to original content: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25828516
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. 2015 Apr 1:5:9556.
doi: 10.1038/srep09556.

Faculty development programs improve the quality of Multiple Choice Questions items' writing

Hamza Mohammad Abdulghani  1 , Farah Ahmad  1 , Mohammad Irshad  1 , Mahmoud Salah Khalil  1 , Ghadeer Khalid Al-Shaikh  2 , Sadiqa Syed  3 , Abdulmajeed Abdurrahman Aldrees  1 , Norah Alrowais  4 , Shafiul Haque  5
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Faculty development programs improve the quality of Multiple Choice Questions items' writing

Hamza Mohammad Abdulghani et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the utility of long term faculty development programs (FDPs) in order to improve the quality of multiple choice questions (MCQs) items' writing. This was a quasi-experimental study, conducted with newly joined faculty members. The MCQ items were analyzed for difficulty index, discriminating index, reliability, Bloom's cognitive levels, item writing flaws (IWFs) and MCQs' nonfunctioning distractors (NFDs) based test courses of respiratory, cardiovascular and renal blocks. Significant improvement was found in the difficulty index values of pre- to post-training (p = 0.003). MCQs with moderate difficulty and higher discrimination were found to be more in the post-training tests in all three courses. Easy questions were decreased from 36.7 to 22.5%. Significant improvement was also reported in the discriminating indices from 92.1 to 95.4% after training (p = 0.132). More number of higher cognitive level of Bloom's taxonomy was reported in the post-training test items (p<0.0001). Also, NFDs and IWFs were reported less in the post-training items (p<0.02). The MCQs written by the faculties without participating in FDPs are usually of low quality. This study suggests that newly joined faculties need active participation in FDPs as these programs are supportive in improving the quality of MCQs' items writing.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Flow-chart of MCQs items' writing training workshop program structure according to the Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation (adopted from Abdughani et al., 2014).
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