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The feedback sandwich technique-make positive comments; provide critique; end with positive comments-is commonly recommended to feedback givers despite scant evidence of its efficacy. These two studies (N = 20; N = 350) of written peer feedback with third-year medical students on clinical patient note-writing assignments indicate that students think feedback sandwiches positively impact subsequent performance when there is no evidence that they do. The effort necessary to produce feedback sandwiches and students' unwarranted confidence in their performance impact have implications for teaching about how to give feedback.

Researchers have suggested that assessment has the potential to af€ect learner behavior in terms of cognitive strategy use and motivation. The authors attempted to provide an understanding of the nature of the effect of particular assessment types on motivation. Students in 3 5th-grade science classes were exposed to 3 different classroom assessment conditions: traditional paper-and-pencil tests, a laboratory task format of assessment, and a performance assessment. Measures of attitudes about science, goal orientation, and cognitive engagement (J. L. Meece, P. C. Blumenfeld, & R. K. Hoyle, 1988) were used. Analyses indicate a signi6-t effect attributable to assessment type on goal orientation only, with the traditional paper-andpencil tests and the performance assessments fostering more task-focused orientations than the laboratory tests.

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Reliability consists of both important social and scientific values and methods for evidencing those values, though in practice methods are often conflated with the values. With the two distinctly understood, a reliability argument can be made that articulates the particular reliability values most relevant to the particular measurement situation and then the most appropriate evidence and theory to support an argument for the presence of that value. The steps in making a reliability argument are explained and an extended example is given. The article is intended to provoke discussion, debate, and the development of additional reliability methodologies.

Admission rates of URM students can be increased by weighting noncognitive higher relative to cognitive criteria without compromising admission standards. Challenging conventional practice in the admissions process may improve health disparities and diversify the physician workforce.

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