Progress Test: advances and prospects

Abstract

As of 2013, the Brazilian Association of Medical Education (ABEM, Associação Brasileira de Educação Médica) started to encourage the use of the Progress Test in a more widespread way in different regions of Brazil, by promoting the creation of regional centers that apply the test annually in a regionalized way. Currently, 18 centers have been implemented, of which more than 220 Brazilian medical schools participate.In 2015, ABEM proposed a project aiming to encourage Brazilian schools to adopt the Progress Test (PT) as a strategy to evaluate the cognitive domain of the expected competence for the practice of Medicine 1 . As a result, the first national test was held in this year, with the participation of 58 schools and 23,065 students 2 .The PT situates students in their evolutionary process and promotes opportunities for reflection and learning (training function). The performance in standardized progress tests can promote the improvement in academic performance based on the capacity for self-regulation and metacognition, in addition to the student's critical thinking 3 . It can also be used as an external assessment of the disciplines and clerkships, with the purpose of decision-making (summative function), as well as allowing the institution to carry out the diagnosis of strengths and gaps in the curricular structure (informative or diagnostic function) 4 .Participating in the preparation of the test is a unique opportunity for Faculty development in good practices on item writing in the format of single best answer.As of 2019, ABEM resumed the process of consolidating the national PT with a view to institutionalizing a process directed and organized by ABEM itself and its regional consortia, on an annual basis, without a classificatory nature. In 2021, the second national PT took place, in an unprecedented online format, which was performed by approximately 50,000 students from 130 medical schools 5 .ABEM has directed its efforts to strengthen this initiative, seeking its improvement, expansion and consolidation. The construction of the national PT has allowed the creation of collaborative work and research networks, either by bringing together individuals with common interests or the creation of true communities of practice.Based on these two moments, in July 2022, ABEM held the first national workshop on the PT, in the city of São Paulo. Among the objectives of this event, it is worth mentioning: acknowledgement of the different initiatives to apply the PT in Brazil and in the world. The main results of the second national PT, applied in the previous year, were presented and discussed, with the consequent assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the process. The ABEM PT platform was introduced. In discussion groups and plenary sessions, a series of proposals were made and, at the end, perspectives and expectations for the next stages of the project were aligned and agreed. At the time, the Board of Directors and Directors of ABEM were present, as well as representatives from most of the progress test ...