
RESEARCH LIBRARY
RESEARCH LIBRARY
View the latest publications from members of the NBME research team
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
Front. Psychol. 9:1988
In their 2018 article, (T&B) discuss how to deal with not reached items due to low working speed in ability tests (Tijmstra and Bolsinova, 2018). An important contribution of the paper is focusing on the question of how to define the targeted ability measure. This note aims to add further aspects to this discussion and to propose alternative approaches.
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.
Journal of Graduate Medical Education: June 2018, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 337-338
To create examinations with scores that accurately support their intended interpretation and use in a particular setting, examination writers must clearly define what the test is intended to measure (the construct). Writers must also pay careful attention to how content is sampled, how questions are constructed, and how questions perform in their unique testing contexts.1–3 This Rip Out provides guidance for test developers to ensure that scores from MCQ examinations fit their intended purpose.