Formulation of multiple choice questions as a revision exercise at the end of a teaching module in biochemistry

Abstract

The graduate medical students often get less opportunity for clarifying their doubts and to reinforce their concepts after lecture classes. Assessment of the effect of MCQ preparation by graduate medical students as a revision exercise on the topic ''Mineral metabolism.'' At the end of regular teaching module on the topic ''Mineral metabolism,'' graduate medical students were asked to prepare the stems of 15 MCQs based on the four discriminators given for each. They were told that one of the discriminators could be the answer for the MCQ and the remaining three could be the distracters. They were further guided in their task by providing few key word(s) in the stem of the expected MCQ. In the first phase of the exercise, the students attempted the MCQ preparation individually without peer consultation. In the second phase, the students participated in small group discussion to formulate the best MCQs of the group. The effects on low, medium, and high achievers were evaluated by pre and post-tests with the same set of MCQs. Both the individual endeavor in Phase 1 and small group discussion in Phase 2 for the formulation of MCQs significantly contributed to the gain from the exercise. The gains from the individual task and from small group discussion were equal among the different categories of students. Both phases of the exercise were equally beneficial for the low, medium, and high achievers. The high and medium achievers retained the gain from the exercise even after 1 week of the exercise whereas the low achievers could not retain the gain completely. Formulation of MCQs is an effective and useful unconventional revision exercise in Biochemistry for graduate medical students.

“Test‐enhanced” focused self‐directed learning after the teaching modules in biochemistry

“…Formulation of questions followed by small group discussion is an effective active revision exercise at the end of a teaching module in Biochemistry . We also found that formulation of multiple choice questions as an effective active learning process for the graduate medical students . Yet another active learning process which we had developed was Identification of mistakes and their correction by small group discussion .…”

Student-written single-best answer questions predict performance in finals

“…An alternative approach is to shift the onus of formative question‐writing away from staff to students. Involving students in question‐writing may bring additional benefits, as writing and setting questions in various contexts is an effective method of learning …”

Discussion in Postsecondary Classrooms

“…Based on comparisons of the preand post-test conditions, Stone concluded that students in both intervention groups did significantly better than the control group in the post-test condition, but neither group did well on retention as measured by the second post-test. Bobby et al (2012) compared the performance of students who were asked to reformulate multiple-choice questions in a biochemistry module individually and in small discussion groups. Although students' gains from the individual task and the small-group discussions were substantial, there was no advantage for either the individual or smallgroup discussion conditions, and this was true for various categories of students (low achievers, medium achievers, high achievers).…”