Pediatric Dentistry Department, Hamdan Bin Mohammed College of Dental Medicine, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences , Hail, United Arab Emirates.
Restorative Dentistry Department, Hail University , Hail, Saudi Arabia.
Med Educ Online. 2020 Dec;25(1):1812224. doi: 10.1080/10872981.2020.1812224.
Multiple-Choice Questions provide an objective cost/time effective assessment. Deviation from appropriate question writing structural guidelines will most probably result in commonly ignored multiple-choice questions writing flaws, influencing the ability of the assessment to measure students' cognitive levels thereby seriously affecting students' academic performance outcome measures. To gauge the knowledge of multiple-choice question items writing flaws in dental faculty working at colleges in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. A cross-sectional short online multiple-choice questions-based questionnaire was disseminated to dental faculty working in GCC countries during the academic year 2018/2019. The questionnaire included five test incorrect (flawed) multiple-choice questions and one correct control question. The participants were asked to identify flawed multiple-choice question items from the known 14 items writing flaws. Out of a total of 460 faculty, 216 respondents completed the questionnaires, 132 (61.1%) were from Saudi Arabia, while numbers of participants from United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman were 59 (27.3), 14 (6.5%) and 11 (5.1%) respectively. Majority of participants were male (n = 141, 65.9%) compared to 73 females (34.1%). Eighty percent of the participants possessed more than five years of teaching experience. Assistant professors constituted the majority (43.3%) of the academic positions participating in this study. The overall fail rate ranged from 76.3% to 98.1% and almost 2/3 of the participants were unable to identify one or more of the flawed item(s). No significant association was observed between the demographics (age, region, academic position and specialty) and knowledge except that of participant's gender (p < 0.009). GCC dental faculty demonstrated below average knowledge of multiple-choice question items writing flaws. Training and workshops are needed to ensure substantial exposure to proper multiple-choice question items construction standards.
多项选择题提供了一种客观的成本/时间有效的评估方式。偏离适当的问题编写结构准则，很可能导致常见的多项选择题编写缺陷，影响评估衡量学生认知水平的能力，从而严重影响学生的学业成绩衡量结果。评估海湾合作委员会（GCC）国家高校牙科教师对多项选择题编写缺陷的了解程度。在 2018/2019 学年，向在 GCC 国家工作的牙科教师分发了一份基于横断面短在线多项选择题的问卷。问卷包括五个测试不正确（有缺陷）的多项选择题和一个正确的控制问题。要求参与者从已知的 14 个写作缺陷中识别有缺陷的多项选择题。在总共 460 名教师中，有 216 名教师完成了问卷，其中 132 名（61.1%）来自沙特阿拉伯，而来自阿拉伯联合酋长国、科威特和阿曼的参与者人数分别为 59（27.3%）、14（6.5%）和 11（5.1%）。大多数参与者是男性（n=141，65.9%），而女性参与者有 73 人（34.1%）。80%的参与者拥有超过五年的教学经验。参与这项研究的学术职位中，以助理教授居多（43.3%）。总体失败率在 76.3%至 98.1%之间，近三分之二的参与者无法识别一个或多个有缺陷的项目。除了参与者的性别（p<0.009）外，人口统计学（年龄、地区、学术职位和专业）和知识之间没有观察到显著关联。GCC 牙科教师对多项选择题编写缺陷的了解程度低于平均水平。需要培训和研讨会，以确保他们充分了解正确的多项选择题构建标准。
