A mixed method study to validate a two-way feedback between student and faculty to improve learning of anatomy / 대한해부학회지

Although the students are subjected to some formative exams throughout the problem based learning units, feedback is not given appropriately and timely. Students want to know and use the reasoning behind judgments and always complain that assessment criteria need to be explained. The aim of this project is to implement a two-way feedback delivery (TWFD), in which both faculty and students have an opportunity to discuss their reflections on learning and examination processes. An Anatomy formative assessment is introduced to 100 students followed by implementation of TWFD. Faculty members provided the students with a structured and timely feedback on their performance. Also, the students reflected on the whole learning process, including real examination experience. The reaction was measured using quantitative and qualitative instruments through a questionnaire, focus group discussion, and semi-structured interviews. Ninety students (90%) participated in the questionnaire with high satisfaction toward implementation of TWFD. Ninety-four percent (n=85) admitted that the time of the session was appropriate. Ninety percent (n=81) of the students demonstrated that the TWFD helped them to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Eighty-five percent (n=77) of the students admitted that TWFD promotes active reflection on the effectiveness of teaching. Most of the students and teachers' comments in the focus group discussions and the interviews supported these results. TWFD seems to be a good approach to implement an effective and timely feedback process between the faculty and the students. Students and the faculty recommended the implementation of this session in different courses and units.

Multiple choice questions revisited: improvement of validity for fair tests

In the last two decades there is a vast increase in the number of medical schools all over the world, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean Region [EMRO]. This necessitates the existence of faculty development programme for the increasing staff. The objective of this communication is to revisit the multiple choice question elaborate on factors that will affect its validity, aiming at having acceptable fair test for the students. This communication describe the major threats of validity of multiple choice questions, namely the construct under representation [CU] and the construct irrelevant [CIV] threats and it describe how can they be overcome. The communication concluded that faculty development programmes and the use of guidelines and blueprint will lead to improvement in the tests validity in medical schools

What does item analysis tell us? factors affecting the reliability of multiple choice questions [MCQs]

Item analysis is a very important part of the examination cycle, as it can be used to judge the difficulty and discrimination of test items as well as their reliability. The objective of this study is to determine the relation between reliability and other components of the item analysis of Multiple Choice Question [MCQs]. The item analysis of 38 modules conducted at the Faculty of Medicine-Jazan University in the academic year 2010-2011 were further analyzed descriptively and correlation were made between the reliability co-efficient [KR-20] and other elements of the item analysis such as the difficulty and discrimination indices. All the items have five options, the percentage of nonfunctioning options is between 27.6% and 70% across items. The facility index is <35% is found in 18.3% of the items and facility index of >90% is a maximum of 75%. All exams have items with a discrimination index <19%. There is a positive correlation among the KR-20, number of items and the percentage of items with discrimination index .60% and negative correlation with percentage of the nonfunctioning options, percentage of items with facility index <35%, percentage of items with facility index >90% and percentage of items with discrimination index <19%. Further analysis of the modules in each phase [Introductory, organ system and clinical] and qualitative analysis of the items are needed