Differential evaluation of students' performance in histology. All questions are equal but some are more equal than...

Construction of multiple choice questions in histology is often hampered by the difficulty in finding alternatives to the correct answer which will be neither trivial nor ludicrous. An additional problem appears when the student performance on the morphological and the functional aspects needs to be assessed. A method of test construction is presented which includes 'multi-dimensional' questions. The questions reflect the objectives of the course and performance is evaluated differentially according to the importance attributed to their content. 'Essential knowledge' is more highly rewarded than knowledge deemed secondary by the course's planners.