Tan, Aik-Ling

Student engagement in large Life Sciences classes can be problematic, especially with the course work done outside formal class contact hours. To enhance student engagement with the content outside class time, we designed an assignment spanning one semester that required students to author MCQs. We used Bloom’s taxonomy to evaluate the MCQs. Additionally, we derived a three-level framework to analyse the demands on the student question-setters by determining the competencies required to construct the MCQs. This two tier analysis of MCQs allowed us to gauge the level of student engagement with course materials. The three-level competency framework referred to students’ foundational domain knowledge at level 1 to application and prediction of cellular functions in normal and abnormal situations, within a topic at level 2 and across different topics at level 3. From 40 sample MCQs, slightly over 50% targeted mid- to high-level Bloom’s taxonomy. Slightly under 50% of the questions required attainment of level 2 and 3 competencies for construction. However, we noted a high level of academic engagement and some level of cognitive engagement among several students which are consistent with self-reports in an anonymous student survey conducted after the semester. We suggest that using a competency framework to analyse student-authored MCQs can make explicit students’ efforts at constructing MCQs.