Test Item Analysis and its Relevance to a Dental Foundation Course at King Saud University

An assessment of preclinical removable prosthodontics based on multiple‐choice questions: Stakeholders' perceptions

“…Item analysis of MCQs involves the process of collecting, summarizing, and utilizing information from student responses to evaluate the quality of the test items 2,3,5,6 . DI, DIF I, and DE are parameters that help evaluate the quality of the MCQs used in any assessment 6–8 . Fowell et al.…”

“…2,3,5,6 DI, DIF I, and DE are parameters that help evaluate the quality of the MCQs used in any assessment. [6][7][8] Fowell et al reported that item analysis is the first level of the MCQ evaluation. 31 Although performing item analysis is a routine process in our institution as part of the evaluation and feedback process of courses, this study is the first time a question bank was developed with a set of prevalidated questions.…”

“…Despite a wide variety of assessment tools available in health professionals' education programs, multiple-choice questions (MCQs) remain a popular and useful means of assessing student performance because they cover a wide range of topics and learning outcomes. [1][2][3][4] MCQs are routinely used to assess students in undergraduate dental programs worldwide [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] to test higher cognitive levels of Bloom's taxonomy. MCQs have both strengths and weaknesses.…”

“…Thus, a quality question bank of MCQs can be constructed. 19 A plethora of studies worldwide [1][2][3][4][5]7,9,13,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and in Saudi Arabia 8,11,12 have examined conducting item analyses of MCQs in their respective assessments of the course/subject in health professionals' education. These studies were conducted as only a single assessment or as multiple assessments in a year.…”

“…This feedback should be considered because the course/subject team members are totally involved in direct measures of learning, such as the students' assessment scores and measuring course/subject learning outcomes. 26,27 Keeping in mind the extensive use of MCQs in assessments in Saudi Arabia 8,11,12 and particularly in our institute, the present study aimed first to analyze the quality of MCQs through item analysis to develop a pool of valid and reliable items over the course of preclinical removable prosthodontics. Second, the study also aimed to investigate the perceptions of stakeholders (students, prosthodontics faculty members, and members of the health professional education unit) on the MCQs of written summative assessment (WSA) based on the analyzed question bank.…”