A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative Indices
Introduction: The distractors have a very important role in Multiple-Choice Question (MCQ) and it can influence the quality of the tests. This study aimed to investigate frequency of functioning and non-functioning distractors and the relationship between the distractors options with difficulty and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fas |
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Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Medical Education Development Center
2019-04-01
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| Series: | مجله ایرانی آموزش در علوم پزشکی |
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| Online Access: | http://ijme.mui.ac.ir/article-1-4776-en.pdf |
| _version_ | 1797638169208815616 |
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| author | Abdolhussein Shakurnia |
| author_facet | Abdolhussein Shakurnia |
| author_sort | Abdolhussein Shakurnia |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Introduction: The distractors have a very important role in Multiple-Choice Question (MCQ) and it can influence the quality of the tests. This study aimed to investigate frequency of functioning and non-functioning distractors and the relationship between the distractors options with difficulty and discrimination in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical sciences in 2017.
Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, the distractors of the MCQs in the immunology were examined. The distractors were those that selected by more than 5% of the examinees', they were considered as Functioning Distractors (FDs) and by less than 5% of the examinees' were considered as non-functioning distractors (NFDs). Data were analyzed using Analysis of Variances and Pearson correlation coefficient; for all tests error was considered as 5%.
Results: Out of 2124 distractors, 1361 (64.08%) were FDs and 763 (35.92%) were NFDs. The frequency of MCQs with 0, 1, 2 and 3 FDs was 12.4%, 19.5%, 31.5% and 36.6%, respectively. There was a significant negative correlation between the number of FDs and the difficulty index (r=0.442, p=0.000), but there was not a significant correlation between the number of FDs and the discriminative index of MCQs (r=0.043, p=0.259).
Conclusion: The findings showed that more than one-thirds of the distractors were NFDs. As a result of increasing the number of NFDs, the difficulty and the discriminative indices of questions decreased and led to a drop in the quality of the test. Item analysis results could be used to identify and remove non-functioning distractors from MCQs that have been used to improve the quality exam. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T12:59:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-62f1e4891ac14f85b2856f120d344218 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1608-9359 1735-8892 |
| language | fas |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T12:59:30Z |
| publishDate | 2019-04-01 |
| publisher | Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Medical Education Development Center |
| record_format | Article |
| series | مجله ایرانی آموزش در علوم پزشکی |
| spelling | doaj.art-62f1e4891ac14f85b2856f120d3442182023-11-03T16:50:49ZfasIsfahan University of Medical Sciences, Medical Education Development Centerمجله ایرانی آموزش در علوم پزشکی1608-93591735-88922019-04-0119180188A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative IndicesAbdolhussein Shakurnia0 Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences Introduction: The distractors have a very important role in Multiple-Choice Question (MCQ) and it can influence the quality of the tests. This study aimed to investigate frequency of functioning and non-functioning distractors and the relationship between the distractors options with difficulty and discrimination in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical sciences in 2017. Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, the distractors of the MCQs in the immunology were examined. The distractors were those that selected by more than 5% of the examinees', they were considered as Functioning Distractors (FDs) and by less than 5% of the examinees' were considered as non-functioning distractors (NFDs). Data were analyzed using Analysis of Variances and Pearson correlation coefficient; for all tests error was considered as 5%. Results: Out of 2124 distractors, 1361 (64.08%) were FDs and 763 (35.92%) were NFDs. The frequency of MCQs with 0, 1, 2 and 3 FDs was 12.4%, 19.5%, 31.5% and 36.6%, respectively. There was a significant negative correlation between the number of FDs and the difficulty index (r=0.442, p=0.000), but there was not a significant correlation between the number of FDs and the discriminative index of MCQs (r=0.043, p=0.259). Conclusion: The findings showed that more than one-thirds of the distractors were NFDs. As a result of increasing the number of NFDs, the difficulty and the discriminative indices of questions decreased and led to a drop in the quality of the test. Item analysis results could be used to identify and remove non-functioning distractors from MCQs that have been used to improve the quality exam.http://ijme.mui.ac.ir/article-1-4776-en.pdfstudent assessmentmultiple-choice questionsdistractorsfunctioning distractorsnon-functioning distractorsdifficulty indexdiscriminative index |
| spellingShingle | Abdolhussein Shakurnia A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative Indices مجله ایرانی آموزش در علوم پزشکی student assessment multiple-choice questions distractors functioning distractors non-functioning distractors difficulty index discriminative index |
| title | A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative Indices |
| title_full | A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative Indices |
| title_fullStr | A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative Indices |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative Indices |
| title_short | A Survey on Distractors in Multiple-choice Questions and its Relationship on Difficulty and Discriminative Indices |
| title_sort | survey on distractors in multiple choice questions and its relationship on difficulty and discriminative indices |
| topic | student assessment multiple-choice questions distractors functioning distractors non-functioning distractors difficulty index discriminative index |
| url | http://ijme.mui.ac.ir/article-1-4776-en.pdf |
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