What difficulties do faculty members face when conducting workplace-based assessments in undergraduate clerkships?

Objective: Workplace-based assessments are based on the principle of providing feedback to medical students on clinical performance in authentic settings. In practice, however, the assessment often overshadows the feedback. The aim of this study was to determine what problems faculty perceived when performing workplace-based assessments and what solutions they suggested to overcome these difficulties.

Methods: Discussion meetings were conducted with education coordinators and faculty (n=55) from 11 peripheral hospitals concerning the difficulties encountered when conducting workplace-based assessments. We analysed the reports from these discussion meetings using an integrated approach guided by our research questions to code the data. Two researchers analysed the data independently and resolved differences of opinion through consensus.

Results: The problems perceived by faculty in workplace-based assessments (difficulties) and suggestions for improvement formed the overarching themes. Problems included the short duration of clerkships, students choosing the assessment moments, the use of grades for the mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise, the difficulty in combining teacher and assessor roles and the difficulty in giving fail judgements. Suggestions for improvement included longer clerkship duration, faculty choosing the assessment moments, using a pass/fail system for the mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise and forward feeding of performance from earlier clerkships following a fail judgement.

Conclusions: Our study indicates that faculty perceive difficulties when conducting workplace-based assessments. These assessments need periodical review to understand the difficulties faculty experience using them; they also require periodical feedback to ensure their proper and effective use.