Comparison between Two Assessment Methods; Modified Essay Questions and Multiple Choice Questions

Using the best assessment methods is an important factor in educational development of health students. Modified essay questions and multiple choice questions are two prevalent methods of assessing the students. The aim of this study was to compare two methods of modified essay questions and multiple choice questions in occupational health engineering and work laws courses. This semi-experimental study was performed during 2013 to 2014 on occupational health students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. The class of occupational health and work laws course in 2013 was considered as group A and the class of 2014 as group B. Each group had 50 students. The group A students were assessed by modified essay questions method and the group B by multiple choice questions method. Data were analyzed in SPSS 16 software by paired T test and odd’s ratio. The mean grade of occupational health and work laws course was 18.68±0.91 in group A (modified essay questions) and was 18.78±0.86 in group B (multiple choice questions) which was not significantly different (t=-0.41; p=0.684). The mean grade of chemical chapter (p<0.001) in occupational health engineering and harmful work law (p<0.001) and other (p=0.015) chapters in work laws were significantly different between two groups. Modified essay questions and multiple choice questions methods have nearly the same student assessing value for the occupational health engineering and work laws course.