Prescribing question (PVSA)

The prescribing question is a complex item type that is designed to imitate a prescription form for medications. The candidate is presented with a question prompt and asked to fill out several medication fields as they might in a real clinical environment.

Building a Prescribing item

To build a Prescribing item:

• Step 1 of 3

  Navigate to Items and Create new item.

  

• Step 2 of 3

  Complete the fields on the new item screen.

  

  1. Item type: Select Prescribing question from the dropdown menu
  2. Item title: Give the item a name. This is entirely free-text and at your discretion, but it is required. This is not visible to candidates during the exam, but it can optionally be used later in the candidate feedback report.
  3. Item number: The item number auto populates but can be overwritten. Each item type maintains its own sequential index from 1-n (e.g. ARQ1, ARQ2 / SBA1, SBA2 etc.). By default this field will receive the next available sequential number for that item type.

• Step 3 of 3

  The basic form fields for the item type are now made available.

  

  1. Item number: This is the item number established in the previous step. It can no longer be changed. 
  2. Question author(s): Unless specified, the question author will default to the current user. Alternatively you can select another author if you are inputting the material on someone else's behalf. Start typing a name in the field and the system will suggest names based on the list of users present in the system.
  3. Item title: The item title entered int he previous step. This can be changed here.
  4. Summary: This is the item stem. You can use the WYSIWYG editor to write your question prompts. 
  5. Comments: The comments field is used for notes against the item. These do not appear to candidates and are for administrative use only.
  6. Item notes: The item notes field can be made available to candidates in the candidate feedback report and is designed to be used for any predetermined answer justification.
  7. Levenshtein threshhold: If the test-taker provides a response that is not one of the given ones, but is within the Levenshtein threshold (i.e. the minimum number of character changes to achieve an identical string), no credit will be given, but the response will be marked in amber so a human marker can evaluate.
  8. Angoff: An Angoff rating for later standard setting can be banked against the item. If a value is given, this will be used if Angoff is selected as the standard-setting method.
  9. Difficulty and relevance: If Ebel standard setting is used, you can bank the difficulty and relevance values agains the item.

  Click Save item to commit the changes.

Adding Responses

Select the Add new response button and complete the response below:

Response fields should be completed as appropriate and as shown in the image above. The configuration will differ based on the answers required. These will then be matched to the answers provided byt he candidates during marking. 

Item preview

In the browser application, the PVSA item appears with the question on the left. Test-takers are required to complete their answer(s) in the free text boxes on the right. Some boxes are semi-validated so that when the candidate begins to type, options are suggested.