[Improvement of CME questions from Der Nervenarzt]

Multiple choice questions play an important role in training and continuing education. Der Nervenarzt has been publishing articles for continuing medical education (CME) since 2002 which usually have ten multiple choice questions. Studies from other fields have shown that CME questions are often formulated awkwardly from a didactic standpoint. In this study we analyzed the CME questions contained in Der Nervenarzt to assess their instructional quality.

The standardized evaluation was performed by semiskilled nonprofessionals. The setup permitted differentiation of 15 known quality criteria for multiple choice questions from the educational medical literature.

Of the 796 questions studied that had been posed in 2002-2008 (370 neurology, 346 psychiatry, and 80 interdisciplinary), 518 questions had an awkward construction for didactic purposes. A negative wording of the stem, followed by unintentional cues and obsolete combination formats were most frequently observed. The proportion of precisely phrased questions has increased significantly since 2006.

The CME questions in the German medical journal Der Nervenarzt have improved regarding their instructional quality since the beginning of the program.