Student-written single-best answer questions predict performance in finals.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Assessment Methods
• Student-Led Learning

Background:

• Single-best answer (SBA) questions are standard in medical school assessments.
• Developing high-quality revision materials is time-consuming for clinical staff.
• Student-led creation of formative SBA questions presents a viable alternative.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of student-written formative SBA questions as a revision resource.
• To determine if student participation in question development correlates with academic performance.
• To explore the potential of student-generated SBAs in summative assessments.

Main Methods:

• Medical students created a bank of SBA questions using a staged approach: writing, peer-review, and senior clinician input.
• Formative SBA tests were compiled and administered online to final-year medical students.
• Performance on formative tests was compared with summative medical school final examinations (knowledge and OSCEs).

Main Results:

• Strong correlation found between performance on formative student-written SBA tests and summative SBA knowledge exams (r ≈ 0.60, p < 0.01).
• No significant correlation observed between formative SBA test scores and summative Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) scores.
• Students involved in writing and reviewing questions achieved higher scores on the summative SBA knowledge paper.

Conclusions:

• Student-written SBAs effectively predict performance in end-of-year SBA examinations.
• Student-generated SBAs serve as a valuable revision resource for medical students.
• Incorporating student-written questions into summative assessments is a feasible strategy.