Institutional evaluation methods that include perspectives of Medical school students: a scoping systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: Institutional evaluation is an important tool for the constant improvement of medical courses, especially when they take the student’s opinion as one of their focuses. Objective: The main objective of this study is to investigate which methods are used to conduct institutional evaluations involving student opinion through a scoping systematic review. Methodology: In compliance with the “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR)”, the searches were conducted in a standardized form, involving at least two researchers and consulting the Lilacs, Scielo, Pubmed, and Embase databases and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), using the software Rayyan, to signal duplicates and allow an independent and unbiased evaluation by the two reviewers. The inclusion criteria used were: Studies published between 2009 and 2019, containing the methodology of evaluation, which assessed medical courses and in which this evaluation was carried out by students at some stage. Also, the following exclusion criteria were used: studies written in languages other than Portuguese, English, French and Spanish; evaluations of a specific pedagogical intervention or limited to some subjects; and articles focusing on student self-assessment. The restriction of time and languages carries the risk of selection bias. Results: 2355 records were found and 12 articles were included. Most studies created their questionnaire and used mostly quantitative scales, although many also included some type of qualitative analysis with written questions. Most of the studies dealt with an occasional analysis and not with a project of permanent evaluation of the institution. Conclusion: Publications in the field of institutional evaluation that involve students and describe the questionnaire are still rare, especially when related to permanent evaluations.