Item Analysis to Identify Quality Multiple Choice Questions

摘要

Introduction: Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) or items are commonly used to provide feedback to the teachers at the end of an academic session. However, item analysis has to be done to ensure their quality. Since, no item analysis has ever been conducted in our department, the study was done to evaluate the quality of MCQs and create a viable question bank.Aim: To evaluate the quality of MCQs used so as to develop a pool of valid items to update the question bank.Materials and Methods: Total 20 items and 80 distracters from an internal examination in Microbiology, of 120 students was analysed by assessing the Difficulty Index (DIF I), Discrimination Index (DI) and Distracter Efficiency (DE).Results: Out of the 20 items, 15 had acceptable DIF I (30 - 60%) and 17 had “acceptable to excellent” DI (> 0.20). Mean DE was 87.5% considered as ideal/acceptable and Non-Functional Distracters (NFD) were only 12.5 %. Mean DI was 0.37. Poor DI in 3 items (< 0.2) with negative DI in one item indicated under preparedness of students or poor framing of at least some of the MCQs. An item becomes easier, when the number of NFDs (incorrect alternatives selected by < 5% students) in an item increases and proportionately the DE decreases. There were 8 items with 10 NFDs, while rest of the items did not have any NFD.Conclusion: Study emphasizes the selection of quality MCQs of average difficulty and high discriminating power with functional distracters to differentiate the students in correct manner.