Choosing and designing knowledge assessments: Experience at a new medical school

Progress testing provides a longitudinal assessment of the development and sustainability of students' knowledge at regular intervals over the duration of an educational program. Comparisons of performance on successive tests are used to monitor growth in knowledge. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of progress testing in an undergraduate program for dental therapy and hygiene (DTH) students in the United Kingdom as the main tool for academic assessment. Data were collected for progress tests of all 38 DTH students from 2015 to 2017. Each test consisted of 100 single best answer multiple-choice items with accompanying vignette. The students chose their answer from five options. A score of 1 was awarded for a correct answer, -0.25 for an incorrect answer, and 0 for don't know (DK). Three cohorts of DTH students were included in the study, and seven progress tests were conducted over a period of three years. Analysis of performance showed growth in knowledge across successive years, with the largest increase in knowledge in the transition from Year 1 to Year 2 and concomitant reduction in incorrect and DK responses. This was a pioneering study to report the establishment and use of progress testing among undergraduate DTH students. Notwithstanding the challenges involved, the study found merit in further exploring the use of progress testing for students in the DTH program.

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“…5 This approach is in line with our sister medical school. 5 This approach is in line with our sister medical school.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

“…5,6,11 The DTH students' Year 1 mean score was 35.6, which may appear to be high. 5,6,11 The DTH students' Year 1 mean score was 35.6, which may appear to be high.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Use of Progress Testing in a UK Dental Therapy and Hygiene Educational Program

Ali¹,

Zahra

Tredwin

et al. 2018

Journal of Dental Education

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“…The test is comprehensive in that it consists of questions covering a broad domain of relevant medical knowledge, and it is organizationally founded on centralized test production, review, administration and analysis. Our description here is intentionally general because there are various different implementations possible, and more detailed descriptions are provided in the literature [1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12]. …”

Section: What Is Progress Testing?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The positive effect of progress testing can be seen clearly from curves showing the growth of medical knowledge. Not only can it be seen that the amount of functional knowledge grows continuously (without huge peaks and troughs), but also that the basic knowledge is retained over the year classes [3, 5, 11, 12, 16–18]. Though such continuous growth occurred even if non-problem based learning or non-integrated curricula used progress testing [8, 9], growth curves were more irregular (with more peaks and troughs) when progress testing was not a summative element of the programme [19].…”

Section: Expectations and Practicalities Of Progress Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of progress testing

2012

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Progress testing is gaining ground rapidly after having been used almost exclusively in Maastricht and Kansas City. This increased popularity is understandable considering the intuitive appeal longitudinal testing has as a way to predict future competence and performance. Yet there are also important practicalities. Progress testing is longitudinal assessment in that it is based on subsequent equivalent, yet different, tests. The results of these are combined to determine the growth of functional medical knowledge for each student, enabling more reliable and valid decision making about promotion to a next study phase. The longitudinal integrated assessment approach has a demonstrable positive effect on student learning behaviour by discouraging binge learning. Furthermore, it leads to more reliable decisions as well as good predictive validity for future competence or retention of knowledge. Also, because of its integration and independence of local curricula, it can be used in a multi-centre collaborative production and administration framework, reducing costs, increasing efficiency and allowing for constant benchmarking. Practicalities include the relative unfamiliarity of faculty with the concept, the fact that remediation for students with a series of poor results is time consuming, the need to embed the instrument carefully into the existing assessment programme and the importance of equating subsequent tests to minimize test-to-test variability in difficulty. Where it has been implemented—collaboratively—progress testing has led to satisfaction, provided the practicalities are heeded well.

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“…Progress testing is a form of longitudinal, feedback‐oriented assessment of the development and sustainability of cognitive knowledge at regular intervals over the course of an educational programme. It was pioneered by the University of Missouri‐Kansas City School of Medicine and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, to assess the knowledge of undergraduate medical students and later adopted by other schools, notably, McMaster University and Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry . The key principle of progress testing is longitudinal assessment of growth of knowledge based on a sequence of equivalent, yet different, tests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Progress testing in undergraduate dental education: the Peninsula experience and future opportunities

Ali¹,

Coombes²,

Kay³

et al. 2015

Eur J Dental Education

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This is the first study to report the establishment and use of progress testing as the principle form of written summative testing in an undergraduate dental curriculum. Progress testing is a valid and reliable tool to assess growth in knowledge longitudinally over the duration of a dental programme. Although a labour-intensive process, progress testing merits more widespread use in dental programmes.

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Choosing and designing knowledge assessments: Experience at a new medical school

Abstract: Progress testing has worked well in a new school. Opportunities for further study and development exist. It is to be hoped that our experiences and evidence will assist and inform others as they consider developments for their own schools.

Cited by 27 publications

References 13 publications

Use of Progress Testing in a UK Dental Therapy and Hygiene Educational Program

Use of Progress Testing in a UK Dental Therapy and Hygiene Educational Program

The use of progress testing

Progress testing in undergraduate dental education: the Peninsula experience and future opportunities

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