109 Department of Anatomy, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, P.O. Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2012 Mar;17(1):27-37. doi: 10.1007/s10459-011-9291-6. Epub 2011 Mar 27.
Until now, positive effects of assessment at a medical curriculum level have not been demonstrated. This study was performed to determine whether an interim assessment, taken during a small group work session of an ongoing biomedical course, results in students' increased performance at the formal course examination. A randomized controlled trial was set up, with an interim assessment without explicit feedback as intervention. It was performed during a regular biomedical Bachelor course of 4 weeks on General Pathology at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre. Participants were 326 medical and 91 biomedical science students divided into three study arms: arm Intervention-1 (I-1) receiving one interim assessment; arm I-2 receiving two interim assessments, and control arm C, receiving no interim assessment. The study arms were stratified for gender and study discipline. The interim assessment consisted of seven multiple-choice questions on tumour pathology. Main outcome measures were overall score of the formal examination (scale 1-10), and the subscore of the questions on tumour pathology (scale 1-10). We found that students who underwent an interim assessment (arm I) had a 0.29-point (scale 1-10) higher score on the formal examination than the control group (p = 0.037). For the questions in the formal examination on tumour pathology the score amounted to 0.47 points higher (p = 0.007), whereas it was 0.17 points higher for the questions on topics related to the previous 3 weeks. No differences in formal examination score were found between arms I-1 and I-2 (p = 0.817). These findings suggest that an interim assessment during a small group work session in a randomized study setting stimulates students to increase their formal examination score.
到目前为止，尚未证明医学课程评估的积极影响。本研究旨在确定在正在进行的生物医学课程的小组工作会议期间进行的中期评估是否会导致学生在正式课程考试中的表现提高。进行了一项随机对照试验，其中中期评估没有明确的反馈作为干预措施。它在奈梅亨拉德堡德大学医学中心的常规生物医学学士课程的 4 周普通病理学课程中进行。参与者包括 326 名医学专业学生和 91 名生物医学科学专业学生，分为三个研究组：干预 1 组（I-1）接受一次中期评估；干预 2 组（I-2）接受两次中期评估，对照组（C）接受无中期评估。研究组按性别和学科进行分层。中期评估包括七个关于肿瘤病理学的多项选择题。主要观察指标为正式考试的总分（1-10 分）和肿瘤病理学问题的子分数（1-10 分）。我们发现，接受中期评估的学生（I 组）在正式考试中的得分比对照组高 0.29 分（p=0.037）。对于正式考试中关于肿瘤病理学的问题，得分高出 0.47 分（p=0.007），而与前 3 周相关的问题的得分高出 0.17 分。在 I-1 组和 I-2 组之间，正式考试成绩没有差异（p=0.817）。这些发现表明，在随机研究环境中的小组工作会议期间进行中期评估会促使学生提高正式考试成绩。
