Blueprinting of summative theory assessment of undergraduate medical students in microbiology.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Assessment drives learning. Written assessment of many universities lacks uniformity and validation. Subjectivity influences assessment. Blueprinting has been used as content validity tools. METHODS: In this study, last 5-year's Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) second year MBBS papers in Microbiology were evaluated for its content validity. Desired weightage to all the topics in microbiology was given by the faculty of Department of the Microbiology. University papers were also evaluated for level of cognitive domain tested. Closed ended feedback from faculty was taken and was statistically evaluated. RESULT: Study revealed both overrepresentation and underrepresentation of many topics across all the last 5-year university papers in subject of microbiology. The cognitive dimension tested in question papers as per revised Bloom's taxonomy was merely 8% from Bloom's level 1, 20% from level 2, and 8% from level 3, whereas 64% of the questions were ambiguous. Faculty feedback revealed significant impact (P < 0.05) from blueprinting in microbiology. CONCLUSION: Assessment should be aligned to learning objectives, and blueprinting improves content validity.