Design, format, validity and reliability of mutiple choice questions for use in nursing research and education
Considine, Julie, Botti, Mari and Thomas, Shane 2005, Design, format, validity and reliability of mutiple choice questions for use in nursing research and education, Collegian : journal of the Royal College of Nursing, Australia, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 19-24.
Multiple choice questions are used extensively in nursing research and education and play a fundamental role in the design of research studies or educational programs. Despite their widespread use, there is a lack of evidence-based guidelines relating to design and use of multiple choice questions. Little is written about their format, structure, validity and reliability of in the context of nursing research and/or education and most of the current literature in this area is based on opinion or consensus. Systematic multiple choice question design and use of valid and reliable multiple choice questions are vital if the results of research or educational testing are to be considered valid. Content and face validity schould be established by expert panel review and construct validity should be established using ‘key check’, item discrimination and item difficulty analyses. Reliability measures include internal consistency and equivalence. Internal consistency should be established by determination of internal consistency using reliability coefficients while equivalence should be established using alternate form correlation. This paper reviews literature related to the use of multiple choice questions, current design recommendations and processes to establish reliability and validity, and discusses implications for their use in nursing research and education.
Notes
Reproduced with the specific permission of the copyright owner.
Language
eng
Field of Research
111099 Nursing not elsewhere classified
Socio Economic Objective
970111 Expanding Knowledge in the Medical and Health Sciences
Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved.
Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO.
If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au.
Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO. If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au.
orcid.org/0000-0003-3801-2456
Cited 
Cited 