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'What do Ayurveda Postgraduate Entrance Examinations actually assess?' – Results of a five-year period question-paper analysis based on Bloom's taxonomy
- Source :
- Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, Vol 7, Iss 3, Pp 167-172 (2016), Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Elsevier, 2016.
-
Abstract
- Background The standards of Ayurveda education in India are being questioned in the recent years and many suggestions related to educational reforms are being put forth by educators and health policy experts. However, the Post Graduate Entrance Examinations (PGEEs) that are carried out to select the candidates to pursue postgraduate programs have received little attention in this context. Objectives The objective of this study was to classify the Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) from Ayurveda PGEEs conducted in different universities of India during the five year period (ranging from 2010 to 2014) into six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy in cognitive domain. Methods This is a retrospective observational study. The sampling method followed was purposive sampling. Totally, 3299 MCQs obtained out of 25 question papers from seven universities spread across four zones of India (North, South, West and East) were included in the study and were classified based on the Bloom's taxonomy. Results About 93.3% of MCQs assessed only the ‘recall’ component whereas 6.2% of the MCQs assessed ‘comprehension’. Percentage of MCQs that assessed ‘application’ level was a mere 0.3% whereas the percentage of MCQs that assessed the ‘analysis’ component was found to be only 0.2%. There was not even a single question to assess the ‘synthesis’ and ‘evaluation’ components. Conclusions We conclude that an appropriate proportion of MCQs assessing ‘higher order thinking’ are required to be included in Ayurveda PGEEs. While it is possible to frame MCQs to assess all six levels of Bloom's taxonomy in cognitive domain, the teachers are required to be trained well in the skills of MCQ writing. We propose that our study may be taken as a lead to introduce the required reforms in PGEEs. Clinical Trial Registration No.: Not applicable.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Higher order thinking Bloom's taxonomy
Higher-order thinking
0211 other engineering and technologies
Alternative medicine
Context (language use)
02 engineering and technology
Education
Nonprobability sampling
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Taxonomy (general)
021105 building & construction
Drug Discovery
medicine
Multiple choice questions
lcsh:Miscellaneous systems and treatments
Health policy
Multiple choice
Medical education
Traditional medicine
Traditional Indian medicine
business.industry
Qualifying test
lcsh:RZ409.7-999
Examination
030205 complementary & alternative medicine
Comprehension
Complementary and alternative medicine
Assessment in education
General Article
business
Ayurveda
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09759476
- Volume :
- 7
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....ee97539ccfe0e9081a32145031b407b0