Evaluating preclinical medical students by using computer-based problem-solving examinations.

A study was designed to determine the feasibility of creating and administering computer-based problem-solving examinations for evaluating second-year medical students in immunology and to determine how students would perform on these tests relative to their performances on concurrently administered objective and essay examinations. The results indicate that problem-solving questions of uniform difficulty can be created and that correct solution of the problems correlates with the early selection of the most relevant data. The mean scores on the three types of tests were not significantly different. The scores on the essay and objective examinations were most highly correlated, those on the computer-based and objective examinations were minimally correlated, and those on the computer-based and essay examinations were not correlated.