Medical House staff Performance on the Facts of Aging Quiz

Abstract

The Facts on Aging Quiz (FAQ) is a self-administered quiz that has been used to measure gerontological knowledge. The release of a multiple-choice version of the FAQ provided the opportunity to compare performance of medical housestaff on the true-false and multiple-choice formats. This cross-sectional study evaluated performance of medical housestaff on the true-false version and on the multiple choice format. To understand selection of responses, an additional sample of medical housestaff were debriefed on their choices of answers to the true-false version. Findings show that the true-false format produced significantly more correct responses than the multiple-choice version, and that physician performance on the FAQ varied with format of the quiz. The FAQ may not be a relevant instrument for determining knowledge of medical post-graduate residency trainees.