Iranian Journal of Medical Education

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Introduction: Evaluating the gap between educational goals and achievement is among the constant requirements of educational process. Using a well-developed test for academic achievement reflecting all educational goals and full syllabus content is a matter of importance. Regarding the magnitude of specialized theoretical courses of midwifery, researchers in this study attempted to assess the evaluation manner and investigate evaluation tests' questions regarding questions level and their accordance with educational goals. Methods: This is a descriptive study performed in cross-sectional way on evaluation of 18 specialized theoretical courses of midwifery along 2 semesters of 2006-2007 academic year. Data gathering tool was a questionnaire. Variables under investigation in this study included evaluation tools, question type frequency distribution, level of the questions in examination and the level announced in course design (based on bloom classification), difficulty coefficient and question discrimination index, appropriate number of questions and the number of questions in examination for each course's content. Results: Findings demonstrated that the midterm examination was held for 5 courses (27.78%). Assessing the level of questions showed that 71% of questions were in level 1 of Bloom classification. There was a significant difference between level of midterm and final questions and level of educational goals (p= 0.0001). The relative frequency of easy questions in final examination was 52.35% and 44.27% of questions had appropriate discrimination coefficient. There was a significant correlation between the number of questions for each educational content in examination and the estimation of appropriate number of questions for each educational content (p= 0.00). Conclusion: The findings of this study reveal that most evaluations held for specialized theoretical courses of midwifery were aggregative (congestive) and mostly easy to answer. The proportion of questions with low discrimination and inappropriate was also inordinately expected. Multiple choice questions are the most frequent assessment tool in evaluating specialized theoretical courses of midwifery and it is accompanied by questions level descent compared to its expected level.

Keywords: Academic achievement evaluation, Midwifery education, Specialized courses, Bloom classification

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