Very Short Answer Questions: A Novel Approach To Summative Assessments In Pathology.
assessment
pathology
teaching
very short answer questions
Journal
Advances in medical education and practice
ISSN: 1179-7258
Titre abrégé: Adv Med Educ Pract
Pays: New Zealand
ID NLM: 101562700
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
2019
2019
Historique:
received:
12
12
2018
accepted:
23
10
2019
entrez:
7
12
2019
pubmed:
7
12
2019
medline:
7
12
2019
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
A solid understanding of the science underpinning treatment is essential for all doctors. Pathology teaching and assessment are fundamental components of the undergraduate medicine curriculum. Assessment drives learning and the choice of assessments influences students' learning behaviours. The use of multiple-choice questions is common but is associated with significant cueing and may promote "rote learning". Essay-type questions and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are resource-intensive in terms of delivery and marking and do not allow adequate sampling of the curriculum. To address these limitations, we used a novel online tool to administer Very Short Answer questions (VSAQs) and evaluated the utility of the VSAQs in an undergraduate summative pathology assessment. A group of 285 medical students took the summative assessment, comprising 50 VSAQs, 50 single best answer questions (SBAQs), and 75 extended matching questions (EMQs). The VSAQs were machine-marked against pre-approved responses and subsequently reviewed by a panel of pathologists, with the software remembering all new marking judgements. The total time taken to mark all 50 VSAQs for all 285 students was 5 hours, compared to 70 hours required to manually mark an equivalent number of questions in a paper-based pathology exam. The median percentage score for the VSAQs test (72%) was significantly lower than that of the SBAQs (80%) and EMQs (84%), p <0.0001. VSAQs had a higher Cronbach alpha (0.86) than SBAQs (0.76), and EMQs (0.77). VSAQs, SBAQs and EMQs had a mean point-biserial of 0.35, 0.30 and 0.28, respectively. VSAQs are an acceptable, reliable and discriminatory method for assessing pathology, and may enhance students' understanding of how pathology supports clinical decision-making and clinical care by changing learning behaviour.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
A solid understanding of the science underpinning treatment is essential for all doctors. Pathology teaching and assessment are fundamental components of the undergraduate medicine curriculum. Assessment drives learning and the choice of assessments influences students' learning behaviours. The use of multiple-choice questions is common but is associated with significant cueing and may promote "rote learning". Essay-type questions and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are resource-intensive in terms of delivery and marking and do not allow adequate sampling of the curriculum. To address these limitations, we used a novel online tool to administer Very Short Answer questions (VSAQs) and evaluated the utility of the VSAQs in an undergraduate summative pathology assessment.
METHODS
METHODS
A group of 285 medical students took the summative assessment, comprising 50 VSAQs, 50 single best answer questions (SBAQs), and 75 extended matching questions (EMQs). The VSAQs were machine-marked against pre-approved responses and subsequently reviewed by a panel of pathologists, with the software remembering all new marking judgements.
RESULTS
RESULTS
The total time taken to mark all 50 VSAQs for all 285 students was 5 hours, compared to 70 hours required to manually mark an equivalent number of questions in a paper-based pathology exam. The median percentage score for the VSAQs test (72%) was significantly lower than that of the SBAQs (80%) and EMQs (84%), p <0.0001. VSAQs had a higher Cronbach alpha (0.86) than SBAQs (0.76), and EMQs (0.77). VSAQs, SBAQs and EMQs had a mean point-biserial of 0.35, 0.30 and 0.28, respectively.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSIONS
VSAQs are an acceptable, reliable and discriminatory method for assessing pathology, and may enhance students' understanding of how pathology supports clinical decision-making and clinical care by changing learning behaviour.
Identifiants
pubmed: 31807109
doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S197977
pii: 197977
pmc: PMC6839581
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
943-948Informations de copyright
© 2019 Sam et al.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.
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