Structured Vetting Procedure Of Examination Questions In Medical Education In Faculty Of Medicine At Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin Malaysia

ABSTRACT

The question vetting is an ongoing process that essentially is a teamwork represented by right combination of experts from within the teaching faculty. It is considered mandatory to maintain quality standard of any examination. Vetting sessions are not only used for screening of questions towards technical and language problems but vetting is also used to generate the content-related validity of assessment questions. The role of vetting committee has been emphasized in literature. However, implementation of question vetting in specially convened meetings is not without errors and problems are encountered if the faculty indulged in vetting does not adheres to an appropriately set vetting protocol. The objective of the study was to identify the percentage of errors to improve the quality of examination questions and to appraise the protocol of vetting at Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Sultan ZainalAbidin Percentage errors in current practice of question vetting were recorded and the need of adequately practiced vetting using a protocol was identified. A protocol based on different level of question evaluation was established. Two levels of vetting committee were identified with chairpersons and members selected from within the faculty. The role of committee members in vetting was established. However, a third level of vetting was exclusively practiced considering FM (UniSZA) a new medical school. Each level of vetting observed 10-30% changes suggested in originally structured questions by the experts with consensus of entire members of the vetting committee. This error was the initiative factor to subsequently design the formation of vetting committee with duly represented members. The vetting of question practiced with appropriate committees and prescribed guidelines was found important to improve the quality of items in assessment employed in second professional examination of MBBS program in Faculty of Medicine at Universit Sultan ZainalAbidin, Malaysia.