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Writing vs coding diagnostic impressions in an examination: short-answer vs long-menu responses
C A Brailovsky1, G Bordage, T Allen
1Bureau de pédagogie médicale, Faculté de médecine, Université Laval, Québec, Canada.
Research in Medical Education : Proceedings of the ... Annual Conference. Conference on Research in Medical Education
|January 1, 1988
Summary
Two written exams assessing diagnostic skills were compared in clerks. Both short-answer and long-menu question formats showed a positive correlation, indicating they measure similar abilities.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Assessment and Evaluation
Background:
- Standardized written examinations are crucial for assessing clinical diagnostic skills.
- Different question formats, such as short-answer and long-menu, may yield varying assessment outcomes.
- Evaluating the comparability of different question formats is essential for reliable clerk assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the rank order of clerks' performance on two parallel written examinations.
- To determine if short-answer/free response questions and long-menu/coded response questions assess the same diagnostic abilities.
Main Methods:
- Clerks completed two parallel written examinations focused on diagnostic skills.
- One examination utilized short-answer/free response questions.
- The second examination employed long-menu/coded response questions.
Main Results:
- A positive rank-order correlation was observed between the performance rankings from both examination formats.
- This correlation suggests consistency in how clerks were ranked by each question type.
Conclusions:
- Both short-answer/free response and long-menu/coded response question formats appear to measure similar underlying diagnostic abilities in clerks.
- The findings support the use of either format for assessing diagnostic skills, offering flexibility in examination design.