Exam Blueprints: What to Consider?

Exam blueprinting: What should I consider in the blueprint? What does blueprinting even mean? Exam blueprinting is a way to more intentionally construct an exam and identify students who need support earlier on. You could blueprint by number or weight of items. So, 4 questions per event would be a simple, numeric blueprint for an exam. Others might select a certain number of items per learning objective to ensure coverage or even lend more weight to more critical objectives. Another component to consider is item difficulty. Do you have a mix of hard, moderate, and easy items on the exam? To consider difficulty, you’ll have to re-use existing items for which you have performance stats such as % correct and discrimination indices. Another component we could look at, especially for licensure exam prep, can be item format. Are items written in a general format or a more Board style format with clinical vignettes? There are other ways to blueprint exams. These are just some to consider. An ideal exam includes items from across levels of difficulty to help distinguish between high and low performers. For all your items, you’d want to look for those with high discrimination indices, preferably over .15. We suggest that the bulk of your exam is made up of moderately difficult items, with 10-20% easy items, and another 10-20% hard items. Think of the easy items as mastery items, or the content that all students should know because it’s been taught extensively and repetitively. Being intentional in blueprinting item formats can also be beneficial. Medical students need to demonstrate knowledge, but they also need to apply it to clinical context. Board style items contain a structured clinical scenario. Working through these types of items helps students apply knowledge in context, prepare for the style of items they’ll experience on licensure exams, and begin thinking like a clinician in terms of clinical reasoning. For these reasons, we recommend introducing students to board style items early on in your exams and increasing the percentage of board style items they see across time. Don’t hesitate to contact the Instructional Design and Assessment team for more information on exam tagging, item statistics, and other assessment or instructional design topics. And don’t forget to visit bit.ly/msucomexams to check out our job aids on exams and other topics.