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Progress Test (PT) is a form of assessment that simultaneously measures ability levels of all students in a certain educational program and their progress over time by providing them with same questions and repeating the process at regular intervals with parallel tests. Our objective was to generate an item bank for the PT and to examine the possible fit of CAT for PT application. This study is a descriptive study. 1206 medical students participated. During the analysis of the psychometric properties of PT item bank, "the Rasch model for dichotomous items was used". Several CAT simulations were performed by applying various stopping rules of different standard errors. CAT simulation estimates were compared with the estimates generated from the original calibration of the Rasch model where all items were included. After Rasch analysis, a unidimensional PT item bank consisting of 103 items was obtained. The item bank reliability was calculated as 0.77 with Person Separation Index (PSI) and Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR20). A high correlation between [Theta] estimations obtained from paper-and-pencil ([Theta]RM) and CAT applications ([Theta[subscript CAT]) was detected for simulation conditions ([N(0,1)] and [N(0,3)]) at the end of our analysis. In CAT, estimation can be made with an average of 14 questions (reduced 86,4%) and 17 questions (reduced 83,4%) [for N(0,1) and [N(0,3) respectively] with reliability of 0,75. This study reveals that it is possible to develop an appropriate item bank for the PT, and the difficulty of administering large number of items in PT can be scaled down by incorporating CAT application.

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Background: Problem-based learning (PBL) is most commonly used in medical education to enhance self-regulated learning (SRL) skills. Self-efficacy beliefs affect students' motivation through self-regulatory processes. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between medical students' self-reported SRL skills and their self-efficacy in PBL. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with second (286; 83.1%) and third (275; 80.2%) year students at the Ankara University School of Medicine. The SRL perception (SRLP) scale and self-efficacy for problem-based learning (SPBL) scale were used in the study. Results: The SRLP subscales were positively correlated with the SPBL subscales. There was a weak but meaningful correlation between the subscales of SRLP (with the exception of the lack of self-directedness scale) and the subscales of SPBL and the students' views on benefiting from PBL. The female students' mean score was higher for the 'planning and goal setting' subscale of SRLP (p=0.017), and the second-year students' mean score was higher than that of the third-year students for the 'lack of self-directedness' subscale of SRLP (p=0.001) with small effect sizes (Cohen's d is 0.17 and 0.27). There was no statistically significant difference between the year and subscales of SPBL. With regard to gender, the female students had higher scores than the male students on the 'responsibility' subscale of SPBL (p=0.003; Cohen's d=0.26). Conclusions: The study showed that medical students used SRL skills and believed in their ability to learn effectively in the PBL context and demonstrated the relationship between SRL skills and self-efficacy beliefs. Monitoring students' development in these skills and giving them feedback could be beneficial for the cognitive achievement of students with learning difficulties and insufficient study skills. Further studies need to be undertaken to investigate issues such as the curriculum, learning environment, individual differences, and how these can affect the SRL process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]