Publication:

Analysis of undergraduate pharmacology question papers at Goa medical college as regards to their content areas

Background Undergraduate medical education aims at sculpting the future physicians. Knowledge gained during this period helps the physician to deal with human ailments and thus human life. It is necessary to ensure that students learn what is important and thus it is very important to ask the right questions in the examinations.

Methods This is a retrospective analytical study involving evaluation of university theory examination question papers of pharmacology of IInd MBBS at our institute. Question papers from the year 2000 to 2016 were analyzed for weightage to content areas as regards to the syllabus.

Results Autonomic nervous system (25.28%) and cardiovascular system (22.30%) in paper I and chemotherapy (33.50%) and central nervous system (23.76%) in paper II are the maximum weightage content areas. Some aspects which are of clinical importance remained uncovered in a few papers, example: autacoids, kidney, gastrointestinal tract, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, miscellaneous.

Conclusions For consistency of validity in the assessment, we suggest that it should be based on structured guidelines. Methods like test blueprinting and table of specifications may be used.