Blueprinting - a tool in enhancing the validity of an assessment tool

Assessment is a “Continuous process, criteria based, cooperatively developed, concerned with measurement of learner's performance”. While planning an assessment, it is essential that assessment methods should be valid, which means it should be in alignment with the objectives and the corresponding learning domains. The validity of this assessment tool can be improved by using blueprint, which helps in synchronization of assessment with the course contents and offers proportional weightage to each of the content.

Aim of the study was to develop a blueprint for undergraduate written examinations in Biochemistry and to evaluate its effect in enhancing the content validity of assessment by students’ feedback.

This study was conducted in July 2019, at Department of Biochemistry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Mangalagiri, Andhra Pradesh, India. Initially we conducted a briefing session, to sensitise the faculties about the concepts and purposes of blueprinting in assessment. The Pre-final theory exam in Biochemistry consisted of Paper 1 and Paper 2, of 50 marks each including MCQs. The topics in each paper were allotted weightage according to their clinical importance and the prevalence of the disease related to it. Each topic was given a Frequency score (1-5) which was based on the prevalence of the clinical condition to which the topic was related. Based on how much impact the knowledge acquired had on the clinical condition, Clinical impact score (1-5) was assigned. Weightage score (W) for each topic was then obtained by multiplying its Frequency score (F) and Clinical impact score (I). Weightage scores of all topics are summed up to calculate Total weightage (T). Now the mark distribution for each topic was calculated using the following formula: Mark distribution of a topic = (W/T) x Total marks allotted for the paper. Based on this mark distribution, a question paper was set and assessment was conducted. After assessment, feedback was collected from the students using a valid questionnaire to evaluate the students’ perceptions about the question papers with reference to content validity.

Out of 50 students, majority of the students agreed that the written examination was fair (96%) and all questions were from the defined syllabus (88%). They felt that there was uniform distribution of questions across all topics (70%) and appropriate weighting was given to topics of clinical importance (86%).

Blueprinting should be an integral part of every assessment as it ensures the content validity which means representative sampling of the curriculum content.