Exploring the use of Rasch modelling in "common content" items for multi-site and multi-year assessment.

Rasch modelling is a powerful tool for evaluating item performance, measuring drift in difficulty over time, and comparing students who sat assessments at different times or at different sites. Here, we use data from thirty UK medical schools to describe the benefits of Rasch modelling in quality assurance and the barriers to using it. Sixty "common content" multiple choice items were offered to all UK medical schools in 2016-17, and a further sixty in 2017-18, with five available in both years.

Physicians' Conceptions of the Dying Patient: Scoping Review and Qualitative Content Analysis of the United Kingdom Medical Literature.

Most people in high income countries experience dying while receiving healthcare, yet dying has no clear beginning, and contexts influence how dying is conceptualised. This study investigates how UK physicians conceptualise the dying patient. We employed Scoping Study Methodology to obtain medical literature from 2006-2021, and Qualitative Content Analysis to analyse stated and implied meanings of language used, informed by social-materialism.

Measuring differential attainment: a longitudinal analysis of assessment results for 1512 medical students at four Scottish medical schools.

Objective: To measure Differential Attainment (DA) among Scottish medical students and to explore whether attainment gaps increase or decrease during medical school.

Design: A retrospective analysis of undergraduate medical student performance on written assessment, measured at the start and end of medical school.

Setting: Four Scottish medical schools (universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow).

Variation in performance on common content items at UK medical schools.

Background: Due to differing assessment systems across UK medical schools, making meaningful cross-school comparisons on undergraduate students' performance in knowledge tests is difficult. Ahead of the introduction of a national licensing assessment in the UK, we evaluate schools' performances on a shared pool of "common content" knowledge test items to compare candidates at different schools and evaluate whether they would pass under different standard setting regimes. Such information can then help develop a cross-school consensus on standard setting shared content.

Predicting failure before it happens: A 5-year, 1042 participant prospective study.

Purpose Of The Article: Students who fail assessments are at risk of negative consequences, including emotional distress and cessation of studies. Identifying students at risk of failure before they experience difficulties may considerably improve their outcomes.

Methods: Using a prospective design, we collected simple measures of engagement (formative assessment scores, compliance with routine administrative tasks, and attendance) over the first 6 weeks of Year 1.

Is There a Replication Crisis in Medical Education Research?

Scholars are increasingly aware that studies-across many disciplines-cannot be replicated by independent researchers. Here, the authors describe how medical education research may be vulnerable to this "replication crisis," explain how researchers can act together to reduce risks, and discuss the positive steps that can increase confidence in research findings. Medical education research contributes to policy and influences practitioner behavior.

Effect of remote online exam delivery on student experience and performance in applied knowledge tests.

Background: The use of remote online delivery of summative assessments has been underexplored in medical education. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all end of year applied knowledge multiple choice question (MCQ) tests at one UK medical school were switched from on campus to remote assessments.

Methods: We conducted an online survey of student experience with remote exam delivery and compared test performance in remote versus invigilated campus-based forms of similar assessments for Year 4 and 5 students across two academic years.