Single Best Answer Questions as a Teaching Tool in Medical Education: An International Mixed-Method Comparative Evaluation

Introduction Single Best Answer questions are an established assessment format in medical education, however, their use as a teaching tool is underexplored in the literature. We aimed to assess the effectiveness and impact of implementing Single Best Answer (SBA) questions into lecture teaching, compared to standard lectures. Methods This evaluation utilised a mixed-method retrospective approach, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis of routine teaching feedback. Over a 2-year period, 10 standard teaching sessions were initially conducted, followed by the development of 43 SBA teaching sessions aimed at improving teaching delivery. Students completed anonymised questionnaires voluntarily after each teaching session (n=3,814 in teaching with SBAs; n=868 in teaching without SBAs). Quantitative data was compared using Welch's t-test. Statistical analysis was completed using the SPSS version 26.0 software (IBM Corp., Armonk, USA), with