Impact of different types of evaluation on the average grade of medicine students: a non-randomized interventional study
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Introduction: in the teaching-learning process, there are many problems in the selection of the most suitable type of exam for evaluating medical students. Our target was to compare differences in the average grade of medical students upon taking three different types of exam (oral, written, and multiple-choice questions) to determine how these different types of exam may affect the performance of medical students in the area of Pharmacology. Material and methods: we conducted a quasi experimental study by applying a non-randomized intervention to a convenience sample of medical students. To evaluate differences in the average grades among three groups, an ANOVA analysis was applied followed by paired T-tests. Results: we initially enrolled 36 students; 7 were excluded (4 were absent and 3 abandoned the intervention), arriving at a total sum of 29 participants. The average grades of the oral exam and multiple-choice questions were both significantly higher than the written exam (oral vs. written: difference 1.8 points; 95%CI 0.8 to 2.7, p < 0.01; multiple-choice vs. written: difference 2.1 points, 95%CI 1.4 to 2.9, p < 0.01). There were no significant differences between the average grades on the oral exam and the multiple-choice exam (p = 0.37). Conclusion: medical students have worse grades on written exams in Pharmacology, as compared to oral and multiple-choice exams. This could possibly be associated with the fact that this type of exam is less frequently applied in Medical School
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