Evaluation of a course on medical microbiology for non-medical graduate scientists from medical microbiological laboratories.

An assessment of the educational value of a series of courses intended to improve the clinical awareness of non-medical graduate microbiologists has been made. Objective and subjective data were collected by means of questionnaires, pre- and post-course multiple choice tests and informal discussion. The format of the courses are described. The increase in cognitive knowledge acquired during three of the courses is comparable with results from another study in clinical students. The anomalous results from one of the four courses may be explained in terms of the composition of that course. The data presented contribute to the information required for the evaluation and assessment of educational courses.

On the pattern of responses to multiple choice questions.

Candidates achieve lower scores on false alternatives and tend to refrain from attempting the latter, as compared to true alternatives, in multiple choice question papers.

A comparison of the performance of three multiple choice question papers in obstetrics and gynaecology over a period of three years administered at five London medical schools.

Four, and later five, of the medical schools in the one multiple choice question (MCQ) paper in Obstertrics and Gynaecology to their students at the end of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology courses. The paper was amended twice after intervals of approximately 12 months. The results showed differences in performance between the five schools on questions and alternatives within questions, which were common to all editions of the paper (the "short" paper). These differences were also shown in the first two editions of the full paper (the "long" paper), but were not apparent in the third. There was a significant improvement in performance from the first to the second paper edition of the long by approximately 11%, but this was reversed from the second to the third edition, where there was a significant decrease in performance by approximately 4%. We cannot here exclude the possibility that this decrease in the third edition has resulted from sample bias. The rank order of the schools may result from differences in methods of teaching. It seems that such relative performance between London medical schools in contributed to by the differences in course legnth and by the occurence of mid-course test. It appears also that student performance in any of the schools has not been uniform over the period of the study, there being a peak during the period when the second edition of the paper was used. Variations in student selection occuring between schools may effect some of these differences. There was also a marked difference in students' performance between Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The short papers appeared easier than the full papers. Whilst this may due to the greater clarity of phrasing for the questions of the short paper, we also believe the subject matter of the short paper may be more relevant. A distinct effect could also be shown, over the period, due to improvements in the wording of the questions. It is possible that students perform better at Obstetrics than at Gynaecology.

Linear study of medical undergraduate performance.

The examination performance of a cohort of clinical undergraduates has been scrutinized. The cohort was notable for a high failure rate at the university preclinical examination, but this failure rate did not reappear consistently in all four final clinical subjects. The assaying examinations were not only valid for their objectives, but also measured a range of other attributes. Multiple choice question papers scores detect both quantitative and qualitative differences in knowledge between the high and low fail risk candidates. The effect of A-level grade is variable but is carried up to the final qualifying examinations. High performers tend to have good A-levels. The contribution of the preclinical course to the clinical qualifying examination was small, varied between the preclinical subjects and also between the clinical subjects and two streams of students. It is shown that lack of an adequate standard in science subjects before entry to university is associated with subsequent disadvantage in clinical training. Such disadvantage could be reduced by an introductory premedical course. The contributions made by the differing educational experiences within the cohort could be detected in many of the examinations; in particular, poor performance at the end of first clinical year pathology multiple choice questions paper examination was associated with poor performance at finals. Failure in the first part of finals indicated a likelihood of furhter failure, factors such as sex and motivation are shown to affect multiple choice question performance whilst others such as work overload do not. The high risk fail candidates can be detected 2 years before finals and might be given special educational treatment designed to improve their chance of first time success as there is no efficient way of identifying them before acceptance into the medical school.