الفهرس 
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Abstract
Competent assessment of students plays a key role in shifting toward a learner-centered paradigm. When we assess our students’ learning, we answer the questions “What have our students learned and how they learned it?” and “How successful have we been in accomplishing our objectives?”.
In modern learning environments, the learner is an active partner in the process of learning, teaching, and assessment. He/she selects, perceives, interprets, and integrates new information to form a coherent and meaningful whole with his/her prior knowledge and former experiences.
In the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University the Modified Essay Questions (MEQ) exam is adopted as the main tool of the assessment of the cognitive domain.
Out of its importance, the researcher intends to evaluate the system of MEQ currently used.
Accordingly, the current descriptive study was conducted to evaluate students’ perception concerning the system of MEQ utilized in assessment of their knowledge and to evaluate the currently used system of MEQ from expert’s point of view.
The study population consisted from 76 students and experts. Number of undergraduate medical students was 40 students from year3 and year 6 in the academic year 2009-2010. It was selected by stratified random sample. All included students were agreed to join this study. They were divided into strata according to their academic grade. Each grade represented relatively according to their total number in the whole population. The study population from undergraduate medical students was selected through a systematic random technique by using random tables. Number of the studied sample of experts was 36 experts from the exams committee members and faculty members and assistant staff of Medical Education Department. The study population from experts was a comprehensive sample.
Self-administrated anonymous questionnaires: There were two types of the questionnaires, one for students to evaluate students’ perception concerning the system of Modified Essay Questions utilized in assessment of their knowledge and another one for experts to evaluate the currently used system of Modified Essay Questions from expert’s point of view.
The overall responses of the study population were positive. The majority of the study population agreed that the venue where the MEQ used to take place was quiet, well-ventilated, adequately lighted and well-furnished. The study population evaluated the overall organization and management of the exam settings and the majority of them agreed that it was well organized and the time allocated for the MEQ exams was adequate. On analysis of the perception of the studied sample towards the general characteristics of the MEQ exam paper, about seventy percent of studied sample agreed that the MEQ were stated in clear language and 60.5% to some extent agreed that the questions were free of linguistic defects. About 63% of the studied sample pointed out that the questions were written in order of increasing difficulty. Seventy five percent stated that the questions didn’t measure a representative sample of the different cognitive functions. Regarding the perception of the studied sample towards the MEQ directions in exam paper, the majority of the studied sample agreed that the directions were at the proper reading level (84.2%) and about 62% to some extent stated that there were directions for each part of the MEQ exam paper. High percentage of the studied sample (64.5%) mentioned that the direction of the MEQ exams did not include how to record answers. On analysis of the perception of the studied sample towards the specific characteristics of the MEQ exam paper, The majority of the studied sample agreed that all students were required to answer the same questions (98.7%) and 50% to some extent stated that the questions made clear what is being measured. High percentage of the studied sample (76.3%) mentioned that the questions were unclear about how the answer will be evaluated. Regarding the perception of the studied sample towards the relation between the stated MEQ and its problem, Sixty three percent of the studied sample agreed that the questions usually stated in harmony with the problem and about 45% stated to some extent that understanding the problem required much time to the extent that affected the time for answering the questions. On the other hand, 46% disagreed that direct answers for the questions could be found in the problem without the need for analyzing it. About the characteristics of the MEQ problem, the studied sample (86.8%) disagreed that the exam problems were comprehensive to provide enough coverage of the studied topics of different disciplines. About approach of MEQ exam paper, Sixty two percentage of the studied sample agreed that the collection of integrated questions related to different disciplines within the same exam paper better than the allocation of a separate exam paper for each discipline.
The study concluded that the great majority of the studied group was satisfied with the venue of the exam, the logistics and organizational issues associated with implementation of the MEQ exam.
Eighty seven percent of the studied group was dissatisfied with the characteristics of the MEQ problem because the exam problem was not comprehensive to provide enough coverage of the studied topics of different disciplines. They were, also, dissatisfied with the comprehensiveness of the questions to include a representative sample of the different cognitive functions and how the answer will be evaluated. Eighty seven percent of the students were dissatisfied with the ascending level of the questions in terms difficulty. Sixty percent of the students were satisfied with the editing of the MEQ except for tight spacing. Fifty three percent of the experts were dissatisfied with the irrelevance of the questions to the stem (problem) of the MEQ and that it could be answered without getting back to the specifics of the problem. About the approach of MEQ exam paper (separation versus integration), sixty two percent of the studied sample were satisfied with integration but forty five percent of the students agreed that the separation is better.