School of Medicine hosts innovative assessment research event

Imperial's Dr Amir Sam and Professor Cees van der Vleuten of Maastricht University

The School of Medicine recently hosted undergraduate education and assessment leads from 14 medical schools.

In attendance alongside the medical schools were senior representatives from key medical institutions. Presenting their research were Dr Amir Sam, Head of Curriculum and Assessment Development for the School of Medicine, and Professor Karim Meeran, Director of Teaching for the School of Medicine.

Members of the General Medical Council, Medical Schools Council, Royal College of Psychiatrists and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health gathered to hear about innovative assessment tools developed at Imperial College London.

Speaking about the limitations of current medical school assessments, Dr Sam highlighted that:

“Whilst ‘single best answer’ questions are widely used in undergraduate and postgraduate assessments, patients are unlikely ever to arrive in a consulting room and present five possible diagnoses for their symptoms to their doctor!”

During the event, Dr Sam discussed his own journey to develop novel assessment tools, which aim to make improvements to existing exam formats. Dr Sam’s research in this area is ongoing, and includes development of an innovative prescribing assessment tool, as well as a multi-centre study that he is leading in collaboration with 20 medical schools. The results of the multi-centre study will be analysed later this year.

The discussion at the event also referenced particularly valuable research collaborations with Professor Cees van der Vleuten, Professor of Education at Maastricht University, Department of Educational Development and Research in Maastricht’s Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, and his team in The Netherlands.

“It is rewarding to see that our work has been embraced by so many medical schools,” Dr Sam said.

“The findings have fostered further national and international medical education research collaborations aimed to inform our educational practice, and we are looking forward to continuing to work with our peers more in this area, and more broadly across medical education”.

The paper, titled ‘Very-short-answer questions: reliability, discrimination and acceptability’ by Dr Sam and colleagues was featured as a ‘must read’ article by the European Board of Medical Assessors.

Dr Sam’s research ties into, and will influence, discussions around the MBBS curriculum review and the assessment of the new curriculum, the first phase of which will roll out with the 2019-20 academic year.

Dr Jo Harris, Chair of the Curriculum Review, said, “With such major curriculum changes, we need to take the opportunity to examine our assessment processes, particularly considering the impending introduction of the national Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA) in 2022/23.”

Part of the assessment discussion, alongside the team in Maastricht, has looked at the School of Medicine’s aim of best preparing students for medical practice. The goal is to implement appropriate assessments that ensure sufficient data and high-quality metrics, whilst reducing the overall assessment burden.

The assessment development team led by Dr Sam is exploring the possibility of introducing programmatic assessment, where information about the learner’s progress is collected and utilised continually throughout the programme.

More information about the MBBS Curriculum Review is available on the School of Medicine’s webpage.