BACKGROUND Multiple-choice questions (MCQ) are still widely used in high stakes medical exams. We wanted to examine whether and to what extent a national licensing exam uses the concept of pattern recognition to test applied clinical knowledge. METHODS We categorized all 4,134 German National medical licensing exam questions between October 2006 and October 2012 by discipline, year, and type....

Most studies on the effect of incentives on risk attitude use within-subject designs. This may however raise an issue of sequentiality of effects as later choices may be influenced by earlier ones. This paper reports between-subject results on the effect of monetary stakes on risk attitudes for small probability prospects. Under low stakes, we find the typical risk seeking for small probabiliti...

The introduction of computer-based testing in high-stakes examining in higher education is developing rather slowly due to institutional barriers (the need of extra facilities, ensuring test security) and teacher and student acceptance. From the existing literature it is unclear whether computer-based exams will result in similar results as paper-based exams and whether student acceptance can c...

We found that decayed wood stakes with no termite damage collected from a termite-infested field exhibited a deterrent effect against the termite Reticulitermes speratus, Kolbe, 1885. The effect was observed to be lost or reduced by drying. After identification, it was found that the decayed stakes were infected by brown rot fungus Fibroporia radiculosa (Peck) Parmasto, 1968. In a no-choice fee...