Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Karim Meeran

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction

Professor of Endocrinology
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 8846 1065k.meeran

 
 
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Location

 

9E05Charing Cross HospitalCharing Cross Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Sam:2019:10.2147/AMEP.S197977,
author = {Sam, SA and Peleva, E and Fung, CY and Cohen, N and Benbow, EW and Meeran, K},
doi = {10.2147/AMEP.S197977},
journal = {Advances in Medical Education and Practice},
pages = {943--948},
title = {Very short answer questions: a novel approach to summative assessments in pathology},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/AMEP.S197977},
volume = {10},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - BackgroundA solid understanding of the science underpinning treatment is essential for all doctors. Pathology teaching and assessment are fundamental components of the undergraduate medicine curriculum. Assessment drives learning and the choice of assessments influences students’ learning behaviours. The use of multiple-choice questions is common but is associated with significant cueing and may promote ‘rote learning’. Essay-type questions and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are resource-intensive in terms of delivery and marking, and do not allow adequate sampling of the curriculum. To address these limitations, we used a novel online tool to administer Very Short Answer questions (VSAQs) and evaluated the utility of the VSAQs in an undergraduate summative pathology assessment.MethodsA group of 285 medical students took the summative assessment, comprising 50 VSAQs, 50 single best answer questions (SBAQs), and 75 extended matching questions (EMQs). The VSAQs were machine-marked against pre-approved responses, and subsequently reviewed by a panel of pathologists, with the software remembering all new marking judgements.ResultsThe total time taken to mark all 50 VSAQs for all 285 students was 5 hours, compared to 70 hours required to manually mark an equivalent number of questions in a paper-based pathology exam. The median percentage score for the VSA test (72%) was significantly lower than that of the SBAQs (80%) and EMQs (84%), p <0.0001. VSAQs had a higher Cronbach alpha (0.86) than SBAQs (0.76), and EMQs (0.77). VSAQs, SBAQs and EMQs had a mean point-biserial of 0.35, 0.30 and 0.28, respectively.ConclusionsVSAQs are an acceptable, reliable and discriminatory method for assessing pathology, and may enhance students’ understanding of how pathology supports clinical decision-making and clinical care by changing learning behaviour.
AU  - Sam,SA
AU  - Peleva,E
AU  - Fung,CY
AU  - Cohen,N
AU  - Benbow,EW
AU  - Meeran,K
DO  - 10.2147/AMEP.S197977
EP  - 948
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 1179-7258
SP  - 943
TI  - Very short answer questions: a novel approach to summative assessments in pathology
T2  - Advances in Medical Education and Practice
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/AMEP.S197977
UR  - https://www.dovepress.com/very-short-answer-questions-a-novel-approach-to-summative-assessments--peer-reviewed-article-AMEP
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/74585
VL  - 10
ER  -
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