Assessment of learning with multiple-choice questions and short essay questions in final pharmacology examinations

Abstract

The most common assessment protocols instructors can use to assess the course learning objectives are multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and short-essay questions (SEQs). Designing effective MCQs or SEQs to assess the lower and the higher cognitive skills is not easy. Therefore, poorly constructed test items(questions) are a widespread problem resulting in failure to assess learning objectives and negatively affect passing rates This study was to assess the quality of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and determine the cognitive level of short-essay questions (SEQs) using three written final pharmacology examinations. Three final pharmacology examinations were administered to 3^rd-year pharmacy students in three consecutive years: 2020, 2021 and 2022.  The selected questions were evaluated on (a) adherence to generally accepted guidelines for writing multiple-choice questions (IWFs) and (b) cognitive level as defined by Bloom’s taxonomy. The results were 38 Item writing flaws (IWFs) (53.5%) and 24.8 (59.15%) questions assessing lower cognitive level(C1)-testing factual recall. In contrast, in short essay questions, 22(53.7%) questions assessed the middle cognitive level(C2). Instructors must be trained to construct well items(questions) covering cognitive levels to effectively assess students' learning objectives.