test item order in relation to course plan content sequence; does it affect nursing students' grades in pharmacology exam

proper sequencing of multiple choice test items is a matter of concern for many constructors. in this study we compared the variances of three different pharmacology test formats for nursing students. the aim of the study is to see if changing the order of questions will have any effect on the grades of the students. one way analysis of variance (anova) was used to compare the mean score of the three groups and levenes test was used to evaluate the equality of variances between them. the results confirm that the variances of the grades in all formats are homogeneous (p=0.141) and there is not a statistical difference between the mean scores in each of the three question formats (p= 0.566). it is conclusive that the performance of the nursing students in a pharmacology course does not change if item sequencing is not according to the course plan content sequence.