Muijtjens Arno M M, Schuwirth Lambert W T, Cohen-Schotanus Janke, van der Vleuten Cees P M
Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Medicine, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Med Educ. 2007 Dec;41(12):1217-23. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2007.02934.x. Epub 2007 Nov 14.
To determine whether items of progress tests used for inter-curriculum comparison favour students from the medical school where the items were produced (i.e. whether the origin bias of test items is a potential confounder in comparisons between curricula).
We investigated scores of students from different schools on subtests consisting of progress test items constructed by authors from the different schools. In a cross-institutional collaboration between 3 medical schools, progress tests are jointly constructed and simultaneously administered to all students at the 3 schools. Test score data for 6 consecutive progress tests were investigated. Participants consisted of approximately 5000 undergraduate medical students from 3 medical schools. The main outcome measure was the difference between the scores on subtests of items constructed by authors from 2 of the collaborating schools (subtest difference score).
The subtest difference scores showed that students obtained better results on items produced at their own schools. This effect was more pronounced in Years 2-5 of the curriculum than in Year 1, and diminished in Year 6.
Progress test items were subject to origin bias. As a consequence, all participating schools should contribute equal numbers of test items if tests are to be used for valid and fair inter-curriculum comparisons.
确定用于课程间比较的进展测试项目是否对来自出题医学院的学生有利（即测试项目的来源偏差是否会在课程比较中成为潜在的混杂因素）。
我们调查了不同学校的学生在由不同学校作者编写的进展测试项目组成的子测试中的分数。在三所医学院的跨机构合作中，共同编写进展测试并同时对三所学校的所有学生进行测试。对连续6次进展测试的分数数据进行了调查。参与者包括来自三所医学院的约5000名本科医学生。主要结局指标是合作学校中两所学校的作者编写的项目子测试分数之间的差异（子测试差异分数）。
子测试差异分数表明，学生在本校编写的项目上取得了更好的成绩。这种效应在课程的第2至5年比第1年更明显，在第6年减弱。
进展测试项目存在来源偏差。因此，如果要将测试用于有效的课程间公平比较，所有参与学校应贡献数量相等的测试项目。
