Validating written feedback in clinical formative assessment

Abstract

Formative assessment is widely accepted as being crucial to promoting student learning and, since 2010, the UK General Medical Council has mandated its use in workplace-based clinical training for all new doctors. As a result, the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) instituted a range of formative workplace-based assessments including the Radiology Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (Rad-DOPS), in which supervisors appraise trainees’ performance in carrying out clinical procedures. This paper reports on the quality of the written feedback in 2,500?Rad-DOPS online feedback forms in addressing the aims of the new assessment approach. Random samples of 500 were selected from the first three years of the new assessment implementation, 2010–13, and from 2016 to 17. Using an appropriate coding frame, the feedback was analysed across the samples against key trainee attributes including stage of training and level of adjudged competence. Criteria for identifying high quality feedback were derived from the literature and a simplified form of qualitative comparative analysis was used to identify the conditions associated with high quality feedback. An average of 97% of the assessments contained written feedback but the number of instances of high quality feedback was found to be exceedingly small at around 5%. The paper offers suggestions for making the feedback process more purposeful in achieving the aims of formative assessment.     

Personal,career, and learning skills needs of first-year university students

This study investigates the personal, career and learning skills needs of first-year university students. Consenting first-year South African students completed structured questionnaires assessing these needs in 1993 (n=1,817) and 1994 (n=2,209). The need for assistance with personal, career and learning skills concerns was found to be much higher in the South African student samples than for North American students.     

Aspiration levels and educational choices: An experimental study

The explanation of social inequalities in education is still a debated issue in economics. Recent empirical studies tend to downplay the potential role of credit constraint. This article tests a different potential explanation of social inequalities in education, specifically that social differences in aspiration level result in different educational choices. Having existed for a long time in the sociology of education, this explanation can be justified if aspiration levels are seen as reference points in a prospect theory framework. In order to test this explanation, this article applies the method of experimental economics to the issue of education choice and behaviour. One hundred and twenty-nine individuals participated in an experiment in which they had to perform a task over 15 stages grouped in three blocks or levels. In order to continue through the experiment, a minimum level of success was required at the end of each level. Rewards were dependent on the final level successfully reached. At the end of each level, participants could either choose to stop and take their reward or to pay a cost to continue further in order to possibly receive higher rewards. To test the impact of aspiration levels, outcomes were either presented as gains or losses relative to an initial sum. In accordance with the theoretical predictions, participants in the loss framing group choose to go further in the experiment. There was also a significant and interesting gender effect in the loss framing treatment, such that males performed better and reached higher levels.     

The 'freedom to frame questions … worth asking', or three stories and three (other) fragments of research

In our state of centralised control of the curriculum and high-stakes testing an examination subject's assessment objectives have become high profile. Some of the anomalous effects of this profile are shown in the teaching, question-setting, and marking of English literature. Glimpses of earlier times are revealed, all three secondary school key stages are considered, examination performances are discussed, and the views of beginning teachers about teaching to the test are sought.