RESEARCH LIBRARY
RESEARCH LIBRARY
View the latest publications from members of the NBME research team
Academic Medicine: Volume 99 - Issue 3 - p 325-330
This retrospective cohort study investigates the association between United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) scores and outcomes in 196,881 hospitalizations in Pennsylvania over 3 years.
Advances in Health Sciences Education
Recent advancements enable replacing MCQs with SAQs in high-stakes assessments, but prior research often used small samples under low stakes and lacked time data. This study assesses difficulty, discrimination, and time in a large-scale high-stakes context
Research in Nursing & Health: Volume 46, Issue 1, Pages 127-135
As interest in supporting new nurse practitioners' (NPs) transition to practice increases, those interested in measuring the concept will need an instrument with evidence of reliability and validity. The Novice NP Role Transition (NNPRT) Scale is the first instrument to measure the concept. Using a cross-sectional design and data from 210 novice NPs, the purpose of this study was to confirm the NNPRT Scale's internal factor structure via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Academic Medicine: June 2022
This study examines the associations between Step 3 scores and subsequent receipt of disciplinary action taken by state medical boards for problematic behavior in practice. It analyzes Step 3 total, Step 3 computer-based case simulation (CCS), and Step 3multiple-choice question (MCQ) scores.
Journal of Educational Measurement: Volume 58, Issue 4, Pages 515-537
In this paper, the NBME team reports the results an eye-tracking study designed to evaluate how the presence of the options in multiple-choice questions impacts the way medical students responded to questions designed to evaluate clinical reasoning. Examples of the types of data that can be extracted are presented. We then discuss the implications of these results for evaluating the validity of inferences made based on the type of items used in this study.
Evaluation & the Health Professions: Volume: 43 issue: 3, page(s): 149-158
This study examines the innovative and practical application of DCM framework to health professions educational assessments using retrospective large-scale assessment data from the basic and clinical sciences: National Board of Medical Examiners Subject Examinations in pathology (n = 2,006) and medicine (n = 2,351).
Integrating Timing Considerations to Improve Testing Practices
This chapter addresses a different aspect of the use of timing data: it provides a framework for understanding how an examinee's use of time interfaces with time limits to impact both test performance and the validity of inferences made based on test scores. It focuses primarily on examinations that are administered as part of the physician licensure process.
CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 18, No. 1
This article briefly reviews the aspects of validity that researchers should consider when using surveys. It then focuses on factor analysis, a statistical method that can be used to collect an important type of validity evidence.
Journal of Educational Measurement: Volume 55, Issue 4, Pages 564-581
Smoothing techniques are designed to improve the accuracy of equating functions. The main purpose of this study is to compare seven model selection strategies for choosing the smoothing parameter (C) for polynomial loglinear presmoothing and one procedure for model selection in cubic spline postsmoothing for mixed‐format pseudo tests under the random groups design.
Adv in Health Sci Educ 24, 141–150 (2019)
Research suggests that the three-option format is optimal for multiple choice questions (MCQs). This conclusion is supported by numerous studies showing that most distractors (i.e., incorrect answers) are selected by so few examinees that they are essentially nonfunctional. However, nearly all studies have defined a distractor as nonfunctional if it is selected by fewer than 5% of examinees.