Joachim Neumann¹, Stephanie Simmrodt¹, Beatrice Bader², Bertram Opitz², Ulrich Gergs^1,

One aim of testing medical students is to assess their level of knowledge. Another aim of examinations is that they can help to enhance the storage in memory for a longer time, at best, till they are in clinical practice. There is some debate what format of online examinations can be more useful to attain these aims. Here, in a formative online test, we compared single-answer items (SC) with multiple-select items (MS) for the very same learning objectives in a study of pharmacology in medical students. Medical students were randomly divided into two groups: group A was first given 15 SC (#1-15) followed by 15 different MS (#16-30). The opposite design was used for group B. One year later, four groups were formed from the previous two groups and were again given the same online test, but in a different order of questions. The main result was that all students fared better in the second test than in the initial test. But in the second test, students fared better when in the first test the same 15 items were asked in the MS mode than in the SC mode. In summary, we provide evidence that MS is better for knowledge retention over one year than SC. We speculate that MS is useful in formative tests to prepare students for any type of examination.

single answer, multiple-select items, pharmacology, medical students