Entrustable professional activities for workplace assessment of general practice trainees.

Objective: To assess whether entrustment levels for junior trainees with respect to entrustable professional activities (EPAs) increase over time; whether entrustment levels for senior trainees are higher than for junior trainees; and whether self-assessment of entrustment levels by senior trainees more closely matches supervisor assessment than self-assessment by junior trainees.

Design, Setting, Participants: Observational study of 130 junior and 153 senior community-based general practice trainees in South Australia, 2017.

Main Outcome Measures: Differences in entrustment levels between junior and senior trainees; change in entrustment levels for junior trainees over 9 months; concordance of supervisor and trainee assessment of entrustment level over 9 months.

Factors influencing students' receptivity to formative feedback emerging from different assessment cultures.

Introduction: Feedback after assessment is essential to support the development of optimal performance, but often fails to reach its potential. Although different assessment cultures have been proposed, the impact of these cultures on students' receptivity to feedback is unclear. This study aimed to explore factors which aid or hinder receptivity to feedback.

Competencies to enable learning-focused clinical supervision: a thematic analysis of the literature.

Context: Clinical supervision is essential for development of health professional students and widely recognised as a significant factor influencing student learning. Although considered important, delivery is often founded on personal experience or a series of predetermined steps that offer standardised behavioural approaches. Such a view may limit the capacity to promote individualised student learning in complex clinical environments.

Narrative information obtained during student selection predicts problematic study behavior.

Introduction: Up to now, student selection for medical schools is merely used to decide which applicants will be admitted. We investigated whether narrative information obtained during multiple mini-interviews (MMIs) can also be used to predict problematic study behavior.

Methods: A retrospective exploratory study was performed on students who were selected into a four-year research master's program Physician-Clinical Investigator in 2007 and 2008 (n = 60).

The impact of programmatic assessment on student learning: theory versus practice.

Context: It is widely acknowledged that assessment can affect student learning. In recent years, attention has been called to 'programmatic assessment', which is intended to optimise both learning functions and decision functions at the programme level of assessment, rather than according to individual methods of assessment. Although the concept is attractive, little research into its intended effects on students and their learning has been conducted.

Medical school benchmarking - from tools to programmes.

Background: Benchmarking among medical schools is essential, but may result in unwanted effects.

Aim: To apply a conceptual framework to selected benchmarking activities of medical schools.

Methods: We present an analogy between the effects of assessment on student learning and the effects of benchmarking on medical school educational activities.

The threat of the dyscompetent resident: A plea to make the implicit more explicit!

Although several examples of frameworks dealing with students' unprofessional behaviour are available, guidance on how to deal locally or regionally with dysfunctional residents is limited (Hickson et al. in Acad Med 82(11):1040-1048, 2007b; Leape and Fromson in Ann Intern Med 144(2):107-115, 2006). Any 'rules' are mostly unwritten, and often emerge by trial and error within the specialty training programme (Stern and Papadakis in N Engl J Med 355(17):1794-1799, 2006).

Medical students perceive better group learning processes when large classes are made to seem small.

Objective: Medical schools struggle with large classes, which might interfere with the effectiveness of learning within small groups due to students being unfamiliar to fellow students. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of making a large class seem small on the students' collaborative learning processes.

Design: A randomised controlled intervention study was undertaken to make a large class seem small, without the need to reduce the number of students enrolling in the medical programme.

Web-based feedback after summative assessment: how do students engage?

Context: There is little research into how to deliver summative assessment student feedback effectively. The main aims of this study were to clarify how students engage with feedback in this context and to explore the roles of learning-related characteristics and previous and current performance.

Methods: A website was developed to deliver feedback about the objective structural clinical examination (OSCE) in various formats: station by station or on skills across stations.

A qualitative study on trainees' and supervisors' perceptions of assessment for learning in postgraduate medical education.

Introduction: Recent changes in postgraduate medical training curricula usually encompass a shift towards more formative assessment, or assessment for learning. However, though theoretically well suited to postgraduate training, evidence is emerging that engaging in formative assessment in daily clinical practice is complex.

Aim: We aimed to explore trainees' and supervisors' perceptions of what factors determine active engagement in formative assessment.

The use of progress testing.

Progress testing is gaining ground rapidly after having been used almost exclusively in Maastricht and Kansas City. This increased popularity is understandable considering the intuitive appeal longitudinal testing has as a way to predict future competence and performance. Yet there are also important practicalities.

Modelling the pre-assessment learning effects of assessment: evidence in the validity chain.

Objectives: We previously developed a model of the pre-assessment learning effects of consequential assessment and started to validate it. The model comprises assessment factors, mechanism factors and learning effects. The purpose of this study was to continue the validation process.

Outcomes of longitudinal integrated clinical placements for students, clinicians and society.

Context: Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) have been widely implemented in both rural and urban contexts, as is now evident in the wealth of studies published internationally. This narrative literature review aims to summarise current evidence regarding the outcomes of LICs for student, clinician and community stakeholders.

Methods: Recent literature was examined for original research articles pertaining to outcomes of LICs.

Expertise in performance assessment: assessors' perspectives.

The recent rise of interest among the medical education community in individual faculty making subjective judgments about medical trainee performance appears to be directly related to the introduction of notions of integrated competency-based education and assessment for learning. Although it is known that assessor expertise plays an important role in performance assessment, the roles played by different factors remain to be unraveled. We therefore conducted an exploratory study with the aim of building a preliminary model to gain a better understanding of assessor expertise.

Poor professionalism identified through investigation of unsolicited healthcare complaints.

Aim: To determine whether analysis of unsolicited healthcare complaints specifically focusing on unprofessional behaviour can provide additional information from the patients' perspective.

Methods: A qualitative study with content analysis of healthcare complaints and associated judgements using complaints filed from 2004 to 2009 at the complaints committee of a tertiary-referral centre. Subsequent comparison of the resulting categories of poor professionalism to categories perceived relevant by physicians in a previous study was performed.

Expert validation of fit-for-purpose guidelines for designing programmes of assessment.

Background: An assessment programme, a purposeful mix of assessment activities, is necessary to achieve a complete picture of assessee competence. High quality assessment programmes exist, however, design requirements for such programmes are still unclear. We developed guidelines for design based on an earlier developed framework which identified areas to be covered.

A model of the pre-assessment learning effects of assessment is operational in an undergraduate clinical context.

Background: No validated model exists to explain the learning effects of assessment, a problem when designing and researching assessment for learning. We recently developed a model explaining the pre-assessment learning effects of summative assessment in a theory teaching context. The challenge now is to validate this model.

Programmatic assessment and Kane's validity perspective.

Context: Programmatic assessment is a notion that implies that the strength of the assessment process results from a careful combination of various assessment instruments. Accordingly, no single instrument is superior to another, but each has its own strengths, weaknesses and purpose in a programme. Yet, in terms of psychometric methods, a one-size-fits-all approach is often used.

General overview of the theories used in assessment: AMEE Guide No. 57.

There are no scientific theories that are uniquely related to assessment in medical education. There are many theories in adjacent fields, however, that can be informative for assessment in medical education, and in the recent decades they have proven their value. In this AMEE Guide we discuss theories on expertise development and psychometric theories, and the relatively young and emerging framework of assessment for learning.

Programmatic assessment: From assessment of learning to assessment for learning.

In assessment a considerable shift in thinking has occurred from assessment of learning to assessment for learning. This has important implications for the conceptual framework from which to approach the issue of assessment, but also with respect to the research agenda. The main conceptual changes pertain to programmes of assessment.