Validity, Reliability and Difficulty of Multiple-Choice Questions in Specialized Courses of Final Exams in Bachelor Nursing at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences

Different evidences have revealed that the quality of exams significantly affects the quality of training and teaching-learning procedures. Hence, the present study with the purpose of evaluating final exams of specialized theoretical courses of Nursing and also showing the true position of exams, was conducted based on standard indicators of classical model of test evaluation. It was a descriptive cross-sectional study which was carried out on final exam’ questions of nursing Bachelor’ specialized theoretical courses. . Collecting data was done by a questionnaire. Some variables in exams were evaluated like: reliability, validity, difficulty, discriminate index, discrepancies, type and level of questions. Accordingly, 209 MC items (56%) was as cognitive level as the Blooms’ level, 197 questions were considered as easy one (58.6%), and 121 questions (36%) had the ideal discriminate index. Moreover, the correlation between sessions and the overall number of designed questions for all courses was significant (r= 0.34, P-value < 0.001). For bloom’s level, 56.2% of all the questions were at knowledge level and 3 (0.8%) at synthesis level. At last, exam questions of nursing major in the present study and many other studies were not of high quality. Therefore, it is recommended that evaluation committees of universities undertake continuous supervision over educational and training plans to be offered for question designers.