Comparison of emergency medical residency pre-board and board exams among universities of medical sciences in Iran

• Main Authors: Mohammad Barzegar (Author), Reza Ghaffari (Author), Farzad Rahmani (Author), Amir Ghaffarzad (Author), Hamid Soltani Zangbar (Author), Solmaz Fallahi (Author), Amir Hossein Jafari-Rouhi (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 2322-2719; 10.34172/rdme.2020.009
• Keywords: board exam; difficulty factor; discrimination index; residency pre-board exam; structural principles; taxonomy; Education; L; Special aspects of education; LC8-6691
• Source: Research and Development in Medical Education, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 9-9 (2020)

Background: Designing and conducting residency exams have been the province of type I universities since 2005, based on the plans of the Medical Education Council. This study compared emergency medical residency pre-board and board exam results among the universities of medical sciences in Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study consisted of 600 questions from residency preboard exams and 150 questions from board exams in 2013-2014, as well as 600 questions from residency promotion exams and 150 questions from the board exam in 2013-2014 and 2014- 2015 at the Tabriz, Shahid Beheshti, Mashhad, and Tehran Universities of Medical Sciences. All questions were at the level I through III by Bloom's taxonomy. Structural principles were evaluated using Millman's checklist. All data were analyzed using SPSS 18 with chi-square tests. Results: The mean percent of more contextualized questions of the questions at Bloom's taxonomy levels II and III in residency pre-board exam questions was 76.6% in 2013-2014 and 86.6% in 2014-2015 among the four universities. In terms of structural principles, the percentage of board exam questions that aligned with Millman's structural principles was 100.0% and 99.3% in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, respectively. For the residency pre-board exam in 2014- 2015, the mean discrimination index was 0.14 (low), and the mean of the difficulty factor was 0.64 (appropriate). Conclusion: Questions at Bloom's taxonomy levels II and III were higher in 2014-2015 in comparison to those in 2013-2014, and the percentage of the correctly-structured questions was high and did not significantly change from 2013-2014 in comparison to that of 2014-2015.