How to choose an evidence-based medicine knowledge test for medical students? Comparison of three knowledge measures

Table 1 Evidence-based medicine (EBM) topics addressed by questions in three EBM tests^a

Topics	No. of test questions covering a topic
Topics	ACE test	Berlin test	Fresno test
Asking questions^b	1, 2		1a, 1b
Information sources^b			2
Study design^b		6, 7, 14	4, 11, 12
Searching for evidence^b	3, 4		3
Internal validity^b	5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11	8, 10, 15	6
Magnitude of effect/ clinical importance		4, 5, 9, 11	7, 9a, 9b, 9c, 10
Application	12, 13, 14, 15	13	5
Diagnostic accuracy		1, 2, 3, 12	8a, 8b, 8c, 8d, 8e

^aEach question is numbered according to its position in the original test. The ACE (Assessing Competency in Evidence-based Medicine) test has 15 dichotomous (Y/N) questions; each correct answer is awarded with one point [14]. The Berlin test has 15 multiple choice questions with five options and a single correct answer; each correct answer is awarded one point) [11]. The Fresno test has 19 open-ended questions, where each question is awarded a different number of points. In order to calculate discrimination and difficulty index for this test, answer for each participant is divided by the maximum number of points for that question [10]. The scenarios from the original instrument were translated into Croatian for this study
^bEBM topics covered in the third-year EBM course at USSM

ISSN: 1472-6920