The rating of pre-clerkship examination questions by postgraduate medical students: an assessment of quality and relevancy to medical practice.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether postgraduate students are able to assess the quality of undergraduate medical examinations and to establish whether faculty can use their results to troubleshoot the curriculum in terms of its content and evaluation.


METHODS
First and second year family medicine postgraduate students.


METHODS
A randomly generated sample of undergraduate medical examination questions.


METHODS
Postgraduate students were given two undergraduate examinations which included questions with an item difficulty (ID) > 0.60. The students answered and then rated each question on a scale of 1-7.


RESULTS
The percentage of postgraduate students answering each question correctly correlated significantly with the average perceived relevance (Examination 1: r=0.372; P < 0.05; Examination 2: r=0.458; P < 0.05). Questions plotted for average postgraduate/undergraduate performance ratio versus the average perceived relevance were significantly correlated (Examination 1: r=0.462; P < 0.01; Examination 2: r=0.458; P < 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
This study offers a method of validating question appropriateness prior to examination administration. The design has the potential to be used as a model for determining the relevancy of a medical curriculum.
Harris
June A
JA
Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. juneh@mun.ca
Heneghan
Helen C
HC
McKay
Donald W
DW
D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000592:standards; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000592:standards*; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans