Reflections on the use of the Progress Test in the programmatic student assessment

Abstract

Introduction: The Progress Test (PT) is a well-established and mostly successful modality of student knowledge assessment in the health professions, mainly those in the medical area, with the potential to contribute substantially to the formative and informative purposes (quality control and indication of improvement in the teaching-learning processes). Additionally, the PT has characteristics that are adequate for its inclusion in institutional evaluation systems that facilitate the formative purpose, such as programmatic assessment (PA), but that also meet the summative purpose. In schools that have defined actions aimed at introducing PA in their undergraduate courses, it is necessary to reflect on the strengths and limitations of using PT in the evaluation system. Development: based on the considerations of a working group representative of the entire institution, tasked with proposing means of introducing PA in a new curriculum for the medical course, with international advice with experience in both PT and PA, we generated a reflection on this topic, based on the authors’ experience and data from the literature. It is proposed that, within the longitudinal perspective of the PA, the PT constitutes one of the pillars in the assessment of knowledge. The PT can be used as a basis for monitoring the students, in the context of their class (cohort), and its results should be discussed with the mentors who accompanies and supports them. The PT must also play a central role in management, as a source of information for eventual review and qualification of the curriculum and its teaching-learning activities. It is predictable that the use of the PT in PA will bring different challenges and barriers, which will be more easily overcome if the institution has already consolidated experiences in the application of institutional exams and in faculty development for the production of good quality objective questions. Conclusion: the effectiveness of the PT within the institutional PA system will depend on measures aimed at increasing its effectiveness in the assessment and that encourage the student’s active participation, reflecting on their performance in the PT, with the support of their mentor, aiming to engage in actions that encourage learning self-regulation.