Faculty development program assists the new faculty in constructing high-quality short answer questions; a quasi-experimental study

Abstract

Faculty development programs (FD) prepare the faculty for their educational role and career tasks. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of FDP in advancing the quality of short-answer questions (SAQs). This was a quasi-experimental study, comprising 37 new faculty. The SAQs were examined on psychometric analysis and Bloom's cognitive levels for the two educational blocks of 1st medical year (i.e. Musculoskeletal (MSK) and Renal blocks). We found substantial improvement in the discrimination index values of SAQs prepared after the workshop (p = 0.04). A higher number of SAQs with moderate difficulty and higher discrimination were also observed. Flaws within the post-workshop questions were reduced (3.0%) when compared with pre-workshop (12.5%). The major incline was also reported within Bloom's cognitive levels when pre-workshop K2 questions (30%) were compared with post-workshop (45.5%) with a p-value = 0.05. The SAQs constructed by the faculty member without participating in FDP are generally of unsatisfactory quality. After the FDP the assessment items of two blocks improved for various parameters of student assessment. The current study advocates that newly joined faculty shall be provided with the FDP to be guided, trained and supported for improving the quality of assessment through SAQs items writing.

Fig 1. Structure of SAQs items’ writing construction workshop flowchart of the workshop activities in relation to Kirkpatrick’s model.