The impact of a faculty development seminar on the quality of multiple-choice questions

IntroductionMultiple-choice questions (MCQ) are almost ubiquitous in higher education. The composition of quality MCQ is an art that takes practice and multiple revisions. Internal evaluations within other health profession disciplines indicate that the quality of faculty developed MCQ are relatively poor.Materials and methodsA 1.5 hour faculty development seminar was developed regarding the construction and the assessment of MCQ. Faculty submitted MCQ both pre-seminar and post-seminar and these were assessed against a quality checklist and scoring system. Faculty were surveyed pre-session and post-session electronically regarding their confidence in constructing MCQ.ResultsThe mean pre-session MCQ quality score was 16.2 (SD = 2.4), which after revision improved to 18.1 (SD = 1.5, p < 0.05). Results of the individual learner strengths and needs assessment indicated that confidence of faculty identifying good and bad questions in their own work improved.ConclusionFaculty development seminars can improve the quality of in-house MCQ and improve faculty confidence in constructing new MCQ.