Evaluation of undergraduate students in paediatrics at Kuwait University

Abstract

Medical schools use a variety of methods to assess the clinical competence of students. The aim of this study was to evaluate the system in use at the Department of Paediatrics at Kuwait University. The analysis of the performance of 142 second clinical year students in three consecutive batches revealed that their performances in the final examination correlated well with the paediatric clerkship scores (r = 0.85, p < 0.0001). There was high correlation (p < 0.01) between the MCQs, short cases and long-case components of the final examination and the total final score (r = 0.79, 0.73 and 0.73 respectively) while the essay-type tests had a lower but significant correlation (r = 0.63, p < 0.01)). It may be concluded that, since end-of-block and final examinations assessed similar competences, one or the other can be discontinued. An alternative is to use the two stages of the examination to assess the candidates in different competences, thus increasing the content validity of the system.