Comparison of the outcome of structured essay versus unstructured essay questions used as assessment tool in pathology

Background: Construction of a question is a very important step in setting up of a question paper in written assessment of students during II M.B.B.S course. The most important aspect of this assessment is framing the question paper. At present long essay type of questions is one of the methods to assess cognitive skills in examinations. The two major categories of assessment are structured and unstructured questions, each of which serves different purposes to draw inferences about a subject’s capability. Objectives: To evaluate II year M.B.B.S students in answering structured essay question versus unstructured essay question and to compare and assess reliability of the structured essay question in Pathology examinations. Materials and methods: Present study was conducted in Gandhi Medical College, for a batch of 205 students i.e. II year students before University examinations. Students were initially tested with unstructured essay question, and then same group of students subsequently tested after one week with structured essay. Marks were tabulated and analyzed. Mean difference in the score of each answer was calculated by Chi square test. Results: A total of 205 students were evaluated for formative assessment by giving two different types of essay questions in Pathology in pre final examinations. 47.8% of students with unstructured essay question evaluation scored less than 10 marks (74.63%) and only 15.61% of students scored 16 and above marks in this group. In structured essay question evaluation (second phase) had higher percentage of student who scored more than 10 marks (73.17%). More than 38% of students scored 16 and above marks in this group. Conclusion: In this repeated measures study, students administered with structured essay method scored significantly better marks than the unstructured essay method, suggesting a need for introducing structured essay method for better evaluation of students in the examination.