Group items tagged

Aim Because it deals with qualitative information, portfolio assessment inevitably involves some degree of subjectivity. The use of stricter assessment criteria or more structured and prescribed content would improve interrater reliability, but would obliterate the essence of portfolio assessment in terms of flexibility, personal orientation and authenticity. We resolved this dilemma by using qualitative research criteria as opposed to reliability in the evaluation of portfolio assessment

"Assessment can be defined as "the process of collecting, synthesizing and interpreting information to aid decision making."1 Key to this process is: Mapping the assessment to the learning objective; and Mapping the assessment instrument to the sophistication of learning being tested."

"The results can be used to reframe understanding of the SP role and of the psychometric discourse of assessment. Ratings awarded by SPs are socially constructed and reveal the complexity of the OSCE process and the unfeasibility of absolute objectivity or standardisation. Standardised patients valued individuality, subjective experience and assessment for learning. The potential of SPs is under-used their greater involvement should be used to promote real partnership as educators move into a post-psychometric era. New-generation assessments should strive to value subjective experience as well as psychometric data in order to utilise the significant potential for learning within assessment."

"Eighty-five learners (53 undergraduate, 32 postgraduate) participated in 10 focus groups. Two main findings emerged. Firstly, the perceived effectiveness of formal and informal assessment activities in informing self-assessment appeared to be both person- and context-specific. No curricular activities were considered to be generally effective or ineffective. However, the availability of high-quality performance data and standards was thought to increase the effectiveness of an activity in informing self-assessment. Secondly, the fostering and informing of self-assessment was believed to require credible and engaged supervisors."

" This research suggests that the theoretical advantages linked to the self-assessment process are a result of its feedback component rather than the practice of self-assessment isolated from feedback. Further research exploring the effects of different contextual and personal factors on students' self-assessment is needed."

This paper focuses on the constructive use of assessment to embed a pervasive and proactive culture of patient safety into practice, starting with the trainee and extending out into the practice years. This strategy is based on the adage that "assessment drives curriculum" and proposes a series of new assessment tools to be added to all phases of the training-practice continuum.

"Which means online assessments could be a boon to your teaching, whether for blended learning, a flipped classroom, eLearning, to better communicate learning progress to parents, or for students to track their own mastery. So then one or two of the 26 teacher tools to create online assessments by Classroomaid Chuang may prove useful to you, yes?"

To determine whether a multisource feedback questionnaire, SPRAT (Sheffield peer review assessment tool), is a feasible and reliable assessment method to inform the record of in-training assessment for paediatric senior house officers and specialist registrars.

"In portfolio assessment, the face validity is high; the educational impact is positive in terms of directing student learning toward the curriculum outcomes; many medical schools find portfolio assessment to be feasible; acceptability grows with time and with suitable modifications; and reliability may be acceptable if one is prepared to sample through the sources of bias, make use of pre-validated rating rubrics, and train the assessors. Portfolio assessment has much to offer"

"Peer assessment of teaching can improve the quality of instruction and contribute to summative evaluation of teaching effectiveness integral to high-stakes decision making. There is, however, a paucity of validated, criterion-based peer assessment instruments. The authors describe development and pilot testing of one such instrument and share lessons learned"

"MedEdPORTAL Publications and Georgia Regents University have partnered to bring you the Directory and Repository of Educational Assessment Measures (DREAM). DREAM's mission is to achieve excellence in health sciences education by providing easy-to-locate, publically accessible information about assessment instruments to health science educators, educational researchers, and program/curriculum evaluators."

Physicians use and interpret data and standards of varying quality to inform self-assessment. Physicians may benefit from regular and routine feedback and guidance on how to seek out data for self-assessment.

"WHAT TO DO WHEN A PATIENT LACKS CAPACITY - The degree and urgency with which to act on findings of impaired capacity depends on multiple factors, including the expected duration of impairment, the severity of the impairment, and the seriousness of the decision. Unless the urgency of a patient's medical condition requires that a substituted decision be made immediately, efforts should be made to identify and correct any reversible causes of the impairment [26]. This is particularly relevant in hospitalized patients with impaired capacity due to delirium. Treatment of the underlying causes of delirium may restore decision-making capacity. Patients with mild to moderate cognitive impairment that is not expected to fluctuate may benefit from more intensive efforts at education to improve understanding of the relevant facts, followed by reassessment of decision-making abilities. A randomized trial found that a memory and organizational aid given to patients with mild stage Alzheimer disease dementia (n = 80) improved performance on understanding, which in turn increased the likelihood of being judged capable of providing informed consent to enroll in a clinical trial [34]. This enhancement was also effective in a randomized trial with middle-aged and older adults with schizophrenia [35]. For patients whose impairments are severe enough that they are judged to lack the capacity to make a decision, there is a clear ethical obligation to seek out a substitute decision maker. Substitute or surrogate decision makers should ideally have been chosen by the patient in advance. In the absence of a designated surrogate, laws may vary in terms of which people can serve in this proxy role and their hierarchy; in general, the order is the spouse, adult children, parents, siblings, and other relatives. (See "Legal aspects in palliative and end of life care", section on 'Surrogate decision makers'.) When making a substituted decision, the proxy should take into consideration

"The language of these competencies has tended to adopt a prescriptive, rather than descriptive, approach. However, despite widespread agreement on the importance of competency-based education and more than two decades of study, this effort has not generated a dependable set of assessment tools."

"Choose what you want to assess from the list."

free resources from RCOG on workplace based learning assessments

Short videos about workplace based assessment and feedback

" Four students share personal reflections of their experience to illuminate themes from the subjective experience of the learner and to understand how to align the learners' interests with the requirements of an assessment program."

The 360-degree assessment is a new paradigm in medical evaluation in which a trainee is evaluated by multiple people in his or her sphere of influence. Evaluators measure identical parameters using the same rating scale, with an additional subset of uniquely designed items to capture areas particular to certain groups.

The requirements developed from across 8 different institutions in the original 2005-07 project are given here with tick boxes for departments, schools and institutions to select which aspects of item banking and associated functionality they feel are key to their own current or future processes. The tool will then give match information using the results of appraisal of 12 pieces of software, including some well known software companies e.g. Speedwell and QuestionMark, and some lesser known projects and companies such as TOIA and BTL. The original project was based heavily in medical undergraduate assessment. Note, a 2009 project is due to create and release information relevant to a V2 specification. The V2 will be more generic, building on the information brought forward for V1. UKCDR is a sister project to UMAP, a national collaborative project in the UK for core, applied assessment in undergraduate medicine.

I'm sharing the UKCDR project - full disclosure - I am Project Manager of this collaborative project. It aims to make it easier for groups and schools in medical education to have conversations about assessment software requirements with commercial and other developers. Additionally, the project is engaging with commercial developers and trying to win the battle to ensure that best practice pedagogic needs come top in their software development plans.

UK Collaboration for a Digital Repository for High Stakes Assessments. Sister project to UMAP. New activity planned for 2009.