This study aimed to examine the effect of using items from previous exams on students? pass-fail rates and on the psychometric properties of the tests and items. The study included data from 115 tests and 11,500 items used in the midterm and final exams of 3,910 students in the preclinical term at the Faculty of Medicine from 2014 to 2019. Data…

Multiple-choice testing is a staple within the U.S. higher education system. From classroom assessments to standardized entrance exams such as the GRE, GMAT, or LSAT, test developers utilize a variety of validated and heuristic driven item-writing guidelines. One such guideline that has been given recent attention is to randomize the position of…

Real-life, complex problems often require that decisions are made despite limited information or insufficient time to explore all relevant aspects. Incorporating authentic uncertainties into an assessment, however, poses problems in establishing results and analysing their methodological qualities. This study aims at developing a test on clinical…

As a classroom teacher, Kari Smith realized that traditional objective tests don't always assess what students actually know. But tests are so deeply embedded in the education system that it would be difficult to do away with them entirely. Smith decided to make tests into learning tools. In this article, Smith describes three strategies for…