Standards medical students set for themselves when preparing for the final MBBS examination

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Assessment and Evaluation

Background:

• Assessing examination appropriateness is challenging.
• Understanding perceived examination standards by both students and examiners is crucial.
• This study investigated discrepancies in perceived examination difficulty.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the examination standards perceived by final-year medical students with those set by examiners.
• To evaluate the difficulty of student-generated multiple-choice questions (MCQs) compared to official examinations.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive comparative study involving final-year medical students.
• Students created MCQs for a Paediatrics examination.
• A mock examination using student-generated MCQs was conducted and compared to the final examination results.

Main Results:

• A moderate correlation (r=0.67) was found between marks from the mock and final examinations.
• Mean scores differed significantly: 47.1% (mock) vs. 58.9% (final).
• Student-set MCQs presented a statistically significant higher difficulty level (P < 0.0001).

Conclusions:

• Student-set MCQs demonstrated a significant correlation with university examination standards.
• The study indicates that student-perceived examination standards are tougher than the actual examination.
• Findings highlight the need to align student expectations with assessment realities in medical education.