What is it about?
This article provides tips on how to write key-feature items for assessment of clinical decision making skills.
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Why is it important?
Regular multiple-choice questions can assess clinical decision making, if they use strong item-writing techniques and focus on clinical scenarios. Even with strong items there are restrictions in what can be assessed as there are generally 4-5 options and the correct answer is one of them. The most common type of key feature question will ask the learner to select two or three options from a long list of options. This eliminates the cuing aspect which is part of multiple-choice questions. These types of questions provide a better assessment of decision making,
Perspectives
Most faculty write test questions. My review of thousands of test questions from faculty, high stakes exam item writers, journal articles, and sample questions in books or online, indicate that few individuals write strong questions. Most are not in line with best practice in the writing of multiple-choice or key-feature questions. This article will help individuals improve their item writing skills.
Marla Nayer
University of Toronto
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Twelve tips for developing key-feature questions (KFQ) for effective assessment of clinical reasoning, Medical Teacher, July 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/0142159x.2018.1481281.
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