title: Assessment of multiple-choice questions in selected test banks accompanying text books used in nursing education.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess multiple-choice questions used in test-banks accompanying selected nursing textbooks. A random sample of 2,913 questions was selected from a convenience sample of 17 test banks. Questions were evaluated on (a) adherence to generally accepted guidelines for writing multiple-choice questions; (b) cognitive level as defined by Bloom's (1961) taxonomy; and (c) distribution of correct answers as A, B, C, or D. The results were 2,233 violations of item-writing guidelines, most of which were minor but some were serious. A large number of questions (47.3%) were written at the knowledge level and only 6.5% were written at the analysis level. The correct answers were evenly distributed: c2s ranged from 0.00 to 4.84; chi square value needed to reach .05 probability was 26.30. Faculty are encouraged to evaluate multiple-choice questions from test banks carefully before using them for exams.
authors.affiliation: Lansing School of Nursing and Health Sciences, Bellarmine University, Louisville, Kentucky 40205, USA.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Masters
authors.forename: B S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Hulsmeyer
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Pike
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Leichty
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Verst
mesh_terms: D019992:Databases as Topic; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013782:Textbooks as Topic