Liao Shu-Wei, Chang Kuang-Yi, Ting Chien-Kun, Tsou Mei-Yung, Chen En-Tzu, Chan Kwok-Hon, Chang Wen-Kuei
Department of Anesthesiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming University School of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
Department of Anesthesiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming University School of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
J Chin Med Assoc. 2014 Mar;77(3):150-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jcma.2013.10.011. Epub 2013 Nov 28.
Examinations are necessary for assessment of student proficiency in medical education, but comparison of achievement across different cohorts in different tests is challenging. We applied psychometric test equating methods to compare student proficiency in two different examinations for a clinical anesthesiology course.
Each examination contained 50 multiple choice items and nine common items were identified from the two examinations (administered in 2011 and 2012). The common item design was used for test equating. Two psychometric test-equating approaches, chained linear equating and item response theory, were used to compare student proficiency in anesthesiology across distinct medical student cohorts. Raw scores from the 2012 test were linearly transformed to the 2011 scale using the chained method, and then Rasch analysis was applied to calibrate examinee ability and item difficulty in the two examinations on a common scale.
Both the linear equating method and Rasch analysis indicated that students in the 2011 examination performed better than those who took the 2012 examination (both p < 0.001). Rasch analysis revealed that the range of student ability was between -0.53 and 4.16, while the difficulty of all items ranged from -5.25 to 6.32. No significant difference in mean item difficulty was noted among the common items and other items in the two examinations.
Although both the chained linear equating method and Rasch analysis can be readily applied to practical test-equating issues in medical education, Rasch analysis exhibited more versatility in test parameter estimation and item bank development for clinical curriculums.
考试对于评估医学教育中学生的熟练程度是必要的，但在不同测试中比较不同队列学生的成绩具有挑战性。我们应用心理测量测试等值方法来比较临床麻醉学课程中两次不同考试中学生的熟练程度。
每次考试包含50道多项选择题，从两次考试（分别于2011年和2012年进行）中确定了9道共同题目。共同题目设计用于测试等值。使用了两种心理测量测试等值方法，链式线性等值法和项目反应理论，来比较不同医学学生队列在麻醉学方面的熟练程度。2012年考试的原始分数使用链式方法线性转换为2011年量表，然后应用拉施分析在共同量表上校准两次考试中考生的能力和题目难度。
线性等值法和拉施分析均表明，2011年考试的学生表现优于2012年考试的学生（p均<0.001）。拉施分析显示，学生能力范围在-0.53至4.16之间，而所有题目的难度范围在-5.25至6.32之间。两次考试中共同题目和其他题目的平均题目难度没有显著差异。
虽然链式线性等值法和拉施分析都可以很容易地应用于医学教育中的实际测试等值问题，但拉施分析在临床课程的测试参数估计和题库开发方面表现出更多的通用性。
