CHOOSING AN ASSESSMENT

METHOD FOR A
COMPETENCY/OBJECTIVE
DR P J SRINIVAS
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPT OF COMMUNITY MEDICINE
Competency is the habitual and judicious use of
communication, knowledge, technical skills,
clinical reasoning, emotions, values, and
reflection in daily practice for the benefit of
the individual and the community being
served.
• “Assessment in this spirit does not concern
assignment of grades or evaluation of
whether instruction was effective. It's
assessment designed squarely to feed into the
learning process and make the learning
stronger.”
― David N. Perkins.
 “Learning objectives” are used to describe the
knowledge that teachers are hoping that
students will acquire from their curriculum or
teaching exercise.
 TYPES OF ASSESSMENT

• Formative
• Summative
 Keep in mind
• objectives to be tested
• number of students / assessors
• are faculty trained in assessment
• time available / infrastructure
• can we club 2-3 competencies in 1 test
• (how well are students trained)
• KSAC (knowledge skill attitude communications)
• what level (K, KH, S, SH, DS, DI)
 Factors to consider when choosing an
assessment / test instrument
• Provides useful information
• Consistent with program objectives /domains
• Multiple instruments /observations / raters
• Fair assessment by prespecified criteria
• Clear tests, recognised measures, clear
references of standards
 Factors to consider when choosing an assessment /
test instrument
• validity
• reliability
• (objectivity)

• educational effect
• feasibility
• acceptability
• fairness
• fidelity (for simulator –how faithful to real life)
Content validity: ability of the assessment
instrument to sample representative content of
the course.

Course content Assessment

• Assessment of ‘Knows’ and ‘Knows How’:
– Oral Examination/Viva
– Long Essay Questions (LEQ)
– Short Answer Questions (SAQ)
– Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ)
– Extended Matching Items (EMI)
• Assessment of ‘Shows How’:
– Long Case
– Short Case
– Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)
• Assessment of ‘Does’:
– Mini Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX)
– Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (DOPS)
– Clinical Work Sampling (CWS)
– Checklist
– 360-Degree Evaluation
– Logbook
– Portfolio
 To summarise
• Speciality based
• Teamwork
• Acceptability to students
• Logistics
• Time