This dataset is comprised of data collected from questions in 18 MOOCs in the areas of medical health education, life sciences and computer science. 204 questions were evaluated by two evaluators using an evaluation protocol from the literature. Over 50% of the MCQs (112) were found to have one or more item writing flaw; 57 of the MCQs contained two or more flaws. A considerable proportion of the MCQs were found to violate item-writing guidelines, which confirms findings of previous research in this area that examined rates of flaws in MCQs in traditional formal educational contexts. The issue of flawed MCQs can be addressed by training faculty in how to conduct quality checks before before and after their deployment. The data consists of an Excel file with several workbooks