Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Research and Development in Medical Education 2322-2719 9 1 2020 01 01 Comparison of emergency medical residency pre-board and board exams among universities of medical sciences in Iran 9 9 10.34172/rdme.2020.009 EN Mohammad Barzegar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5503-9039 Reza Ghaffari https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5765-5882 Farzad Rahmani https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5582-9156 Amir Ghaffarzad https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5070-2583 Hamid Soltani Zangbar https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6979-0723 Solmaz Fallahi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6100-7236 Amir Hossein Jafari-Rouhi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7577-9384 Journal Article 10.34172/rdme.2020.009 2020 02 10 2020 04 18 Background: Designing and conducting residency exams have been the province of type I universities since 2005, based on the plans of the Medical Education Council. This study compared emergency medical residency pre-board and board exam results among the universities of medical sciences in Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study consisted of 600 questions from residency preboard exams and 150 questions from board exams in 2013-2014, as well as 600 questions from residency promotion exams and 150 questions from the board exam in 2013-2014 and 2014- 2015 at the Tabriz, Shahid Beheshti, Mashhad, and Tehran Universities of Medical Sciences. All questions were at the level I through III by Bloom’s taxonomy. Structural principles were evaluated using Millman’s checklist. All data were analyzed using SPSS 18 with chi-square tests. Results: The mean percent of more contextualized questions of the questions at Bloom’s taxonomy levels II and III in residency pre-board exam questions was 76.6% in 2013-2014 and 86.6% in 2014-2015 among the four universities. In terms of structural principles, the percentage of board exam questions that aligned with Millman’s structural principles was 100.0% and 99.3% in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, respectively. For the residency pre-board exam in 2014- 2015, the mean discrimination index was 0.14 (low), and the mean of the difficulty factor was 0.64 (appropriate). Conclusion: Questions at Bloom’s taxonomy levels II and III were higher in 2014-2015 in comparison to those in 2013-2014, and the percentage of the correctly-structured questions was high and did not significantly change from 2013-2014 in comparison to that of 2014-2015.