Item Analysis to Assess Quality of MCQs.

Dr. Swapnagandha S. Halikar; Dr.Veerendra Godbole; Dr.Saurabh Chaudhari

Volume : VI, Issue : III, March - 2016

Item Analysis to Assess Quality of MCQs.

Dr. Swapnagandha S. Halikar, Dr. Veerendra Godbole, Dr. Saurabh Chaudhari

Abstract :

<p>&nbsp;Introduction: Assessment of medical undergraduate students give insight about their knowledge and competencies. MCQs (items) are being increasingly used in such assessments. Selection of quality MCQs is necessary to assess the knowledge of the students &amp; to differentiate the students of different abilities in correct manner. This study was conducted at Smt. Kashibai Navale Medical College to evaluate MCQs and to develop valid pool of MCQs Materials and methods: 60 students of VII semester MBBS (Ophthalmology) appeared for an internal assessment in June 2015. 20 items were analyzed for Difficulty index, Discrimination index and Distractor efficiency. Results: After statistical analysis of data, it was observed that Difficulty index i.e. &lsquo;p&rsquo; value of analyzed MCQs ranged from 5% (lowest) to 95% (Highest) &amp; Discriminative index i.e. &lsquo;d&rsquo; value ranged from &ndash; 0.2 (lowest) to 0.65 (Highest). Total 35% items were in acceptable range of difficulty level (&lsquo;p&rsquo; value 30 &ndash; 70%), 50% items were easy &amp; 15 % items were difficult. Discrimination index of 30% items was excellent (d value&gt;0.35), while 15% items were having poor discriminative power. Distractor Efficiency (DE) of 20% items was 66.6% whereas 50% items had 0% DE. Conclusion: Item Analysis is simple procedure for evaluation of validity &amp; reliability of MCQs thus improving its quality thereby strengthing the question bank.</p>