Developing Multiple-Choice Questions for Anatomy Examinations

Abstract

Multiple choice questions (MCQ’s) are widely used in anatomy education, but creating high-quality questions takes careful attention to certain guidelines. As much as possible, anatomists should frame their multiple choice questions with a realistic clinical scenario. The answer choices or foils should be made as simple and as uniform as possible in order to provide the test taker with an unambiguous list of possible answers from which to choose the correct answer. A powerful general rule of thumb in designing the answer list is to cover the answer list and attempt to answer the question. The correct answer should be known without referring to the answer list. Learning to develop high quality multiple choice questions not only helps faculty ensure that their examinations are accurate measures of student knowledge but can also help faculty develop question banks of high quality multiple choice questions that can be powerful learning tools when they are provided to students during their initial acquisition of anatomical knowledge.