Download PDF
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Journal of Health and Allied Sciences NU 2021; 11(03): 130-135
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1722822
Original Article

Item Analysis of Multiple-Choice Questions in Pharmacology in an Indian Medical School

Manoor Narasimha Sachidananda Adiga 
1   Department of Pharmacology, K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, Deralakatte, Nitte (Deemed to be) University, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India
,
Swathi Acharya 
1   Department of Pharmacology, K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, Deralakatte, Nitte (Deemed to be) University, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India
,
Rajendra Holla 
1   Department of Pharmacology, K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, Deralakatte, Nitte (Deemed to be) University, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India
› Author Affiliations
› Further Information
Also available at
   Permissions and Reprints

Abstract

Introduction Student assessment by multiple-choice questions (MCQs) is an integral part of student evaluation in medicine. The medical teacher should be trained to construct an item with proper stem and valid options. Periodic item analyses will make the process of assessment more meaningful. Hence, we conducted the study to analyze MCQs (item analysis) tested on a batch of MBBS students in pharmacology in their three internal assessment examinations.

Methods The study was conducted in the Department of Pharmacology of a medical college in Mangaluru on 150 students. The MCQs of the three internal assessment examinations (20 each) respectively were analyzed. We analyzed each question for difficulty index (DI), discrimination index (DsI), and distracter efficacy or functionality and expressed the percentage results.

Results The DI was in an acceptable range of 60, 75, and 90%, respectively, in the three internal assessments. The percentage of “too difficult” questions was 10, 20, and 10% and the average DsI was 0.32 ± 0.04, 0.28 ± 0.02, and 0.26 ± 0.02, respectively. In the second and third internal assessments, 95% of questions had functional distracters, while in the first internal assessment, only 60% of questions had functional distracters.

Conclusion We conclude from our study that even though the items (MCQs) framed for the internal assessments were in the acceptable range of quality in terms of the parameters assessed, we must improve MCQ’s construction in selecting distracters in some topics.

Keywords

item analysis - MCQs - difficulty index - discrimination index


Publication History

Article published online:
10 February 2021

© 2021. Nitte University (Deemed to be University). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
A-12, 2nd Floor, Sector 2, Noida-201301 UP, India

 

  • References

  • 1 Ananthakrishnan N. Medical Education – Principles and Practice. In: Ananthakrishnan N, Sethuraman KR, Kumar S, eds. Item Analysis: Validation and Banking of MCQs. 2nd ed. All India press 2000: 131-137
  • 2 Scorepak®: Item analysis. www.washington.edu./oea/score1/htm. Accessed April 13, 2013
  • 3 Singh T, Gupta P, Singh D. Test and item analysis. In: Principles of Medical Education. 3rd ed. New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd 2009: pp. 70-77
  • 4 Matlock-Hetzel S. Basic concept in item and test analysis. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwest Educational Research Association, Austin, January, 1997. www.ericae.net/ft/tamu/espy.html. Accessed April 13, 2013
  • 5 Sarin YK, Khurana M, Natu MV, Thomas AG, Singh T. Item analysis of published MCQs. Indian Pediatr 1998; 35 (11) 1103-1105
    PubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 6 Tarrant M, Ware J, Mohammed AM. An assessment of functioning and non-functioning distractors in multiple-choice questions: a descriptive analysis. BMC Med Educ 2009; 9: Article 40 DOI: 10.1186/1472-6920-9-40.
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 7 Scantron Guides - Item Analysis, adapted from Michigan State University website and Barbara gross devils tools for teaching. www.freepdfdb.com/pdf/item-analysis-scantron. Accessed April 13, 2013
  • 8 Pande SS, Pande SR, Parate VR, Nikam AP, Agrekar SH. Correlation between difficulty & discrimination indices of MCQs in formative exam in physiology. South East Asian J Med Educ. 2013; 7: 45-50
    CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • 9 Karelia BN, Pillai A, Vegada BN. The levels of difficulty and discrimination indices and relationship between them in four-response type multiple choice questions of pharmacology summative tests of year II MBBS students. IeJSME 2013; 6: 41-46
    CrossrefGoogle Scholar
  • 10 Patel KA, Mahajan NR. Itemized analysis of questions of multiple choice question (MCQ) exam. Int J Sci Res (Ahmedabad) 2013; 2: 279-280
    Google Scholar
  • 11 Mehta G, Mokhasi V. Item analysis of multiple choice questions - an assessment of the assessment tool. Int J Health Sci Res 2014; 4: 197-202
    Google Scholar
  • 12 Gajjar S, Sharma R, Kumar P, Rana M. Item and test analysis to identify quality multiple choice questions (MCQs) from an assessment of medical students of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Indian J Community Med 2014; 39 (01) 17-20
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 13 Hingorjo MR, Jaleel F. Analysis of one-best MCQs: the difficulty index, discrimination index and distractor efficiency. J Pak Med Assoc 2012; 62 (02) 142-147
    PubMedGoogle Scholar