Quality assessment of a multiple choice test through psychometric properties

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Introduction: Instruments for Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) assesment in health sciences must be designed to ensure validity and reliability. The present paper assesses the quality of a MCQs test in Research Methodology at the Faculty of Medicine at Xochicalco University. It establishes the basis to improve the quality of MCQs and is intended as a baseline for other universities. Methodology: The peer-reviewed test had 20 MCQs with three distractors with and a single correct response and 89 students took the exam. The tests were graded and analyzed to estimate difficulty index (DIF I), discrimination index (DI) and distractor efficiency (DE). Cronbach's alpha and ANOVA were calculated with SPSS. Results: The resulting DIF I (0.49) indicates that the test was moderately difficult, mean discrimination index of 0.25 means that the test has a regular quality to discriminate between skilled and unskilled students and needs to be checked, only 20% of the items were considered excellent and 5% were considered good questions. Alpha coefficient was 0.898 considered good for a MCQs assesment. ANOVA results showed no significant differences between groups. Discussion and Conclusion: This test shows a high percentage of moderatly difficult questions, is unbalanced and a reduction of Non Functional Distractors (NFDs) is needed. However the topic learned has the same standard across the different groups of students.