[Application of item response theory to immunology test questions from the comprehensive test of basic medicine]

Objective The comprehensive test is adaptable to medical integration education and is an effective way to evaluate students' performance and assess the effects of teaching reform. Given the special characteristics of the comprehensive test, this paper is designed to apply item response theory to immunology test question analysis in the comprehensive test of basic medicine, illustrating the method of applying the theory to the medical test evaluation and elaborating its role and significance in quality control of medical comprehensive test. Methods The software e-irt and SPSS were used to analyze 180 immunology test questions from the comprehensive test of basic medicine for six years. All parameters were calculated and then equated to produce characteristic curve and information function curve. Results The immunology test questions from the comprehensive test of basic medicine was of high reliability, but of lower difficulty value and discrimination value than the overall level of the comprehensive test paper. The test parameters and examinees' ability showed significant differences among the six years. The quality of certain immunology test questions did not meet the ideal standard, which is required to be analyzed. Conclusion Medical integration education facilitates the process of our students acquiring immunology knowledge. The item response theory can be effectively applied to comparing the papers, questions and examinees' abilities among the years on the same scale, thus presenting the existing problems in terms of question quality, teaching process and examines' abilities, improving the quality of test questions, and facilitating the establishment of a standardized examination database.