University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Iasi switches to multi-choice tests

The "Grigore T. Popa" University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Iasi has changed the way students take exams, opting for multi-choice questions, a method that has not been tested before in any higher education institution in the country.

The theoretical exams for each discipline this year will be in the form of multiple-choice tests. The tests will be taken on tablets, from a set of questions to which every student had been given access beforehand.

Exams will take place in the following fashion. Faculty members first create hundreds of questions and ten answers for each discipline, without specifying which are correct and which are wrong. The student has the opportunity to schedule the exam whenever they want within the agreed interval, based on his or her eLearning credentials. When the student takes the exam, a random number of questions is generated for them. Some questions have simple answers, while others have multiple answers. Students have a fixed amount of time to solve each question.

"We decided to publish the questions and answer options, without specifying the correct answer, just to familiarize students with the examination system. It is a new evaluation system, and it takes them out of their comfort zone, although there have been many changes in the last two years due to the pandemic,” professor Viorel Scripcariu, rector of the university, told Ziarul de Iasi.

“On the other hand, I believe that a student who has gone through 750 questions in a discipline and read the bibliography to find out what the correct answers are has a good level of knowledge," he added.

The first exam went without any problems. The total investment was about EUR 800,000 and consisted of the purchase of tablets necessary for examination, hardware and software infrastructure, network, and WIFI.

(Photo source: Arrowsmith2 | Dreamstime.com)