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Published on: September 11, 2021
Difficulty and discrimination indices of multiple-choice examination items in a college of pharmacy therapeutics and
Joshua Caballero1, William R Wolowich, Sandra Benavides
1College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to identify differences in difficulty and discrimination among multiple-choice examination items with regard to format and content in pharmacy therapeutics and pathophysiology (TP) courses.
Methods:
Items from a TP course sequence were categorized by format and content by a faculty committee using the Delphi technique. Difficulty was not normally distributed; therefore, a logit transformation was employed. Difficulty and discrimination were analysed using one-way analysis of variance, with post hoc Bonferroni correction for pairs, to detect differences.
Key Findings:
A total of 516 items were included, with approximately 233 students answering each item. Case-based items were statistically more difficult than Standard (P=0.0007) or Statement items (P=0.001) and more discriminatory than Standard items (P=0.015). Dosing items were more difficult (P=0.013) and discriminating (P=0.02) than therapeutics items.
Conclusions:
Case-based items appear to have been more difficult than other items and may provide greater discrimination than Standard items.
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