Introduction:

Assessment drives learning and should follow a competence-based approach. The Progress Test (PT) has been used on a large scale for summative and mainly formative purposes to assess knowledge and the ability to use it in the professional context.

Objective:

To check the adequacy and quality of the items and that make up the progress tests sat by students.

Method:

Descriptive and retrospective exploratory study that analyzed all the items of six PT exams applied to medical students from the first to the sixth year of the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto/USP, from 2013 to 2018. The seven indicators of good practices were: 1. Addresses a relevant topic in medical training; 2. Statement longer than key answer and distractors; 3. Application of knowledge evaluated; 4.Clear lead-in defined for the item in the statement; 5. Only one domain of knowledge assessed in each item; 6.Plausible and homogeneous key answer and distractors; 7.Absence of flaws that add unnecessary difficulty or give clues to the correct answer. Two independent evaluators analyzed the items and, if necessary, they jointly reviewed any disagreement.

Result:

The analysis showed a good technical quality of most items in the six PT exams. In addition, they indicated that non-adherence was a bit more frequent for indicators 4 and 5, which can compromise both the validity and the interpretation of the test results in terms of knowledge gaps on the part of students.

Conclusion:

In general, the quality of the items was very good but there are some opportunities for improvement in the process of item writing based on faculty development within the institution.

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