Abstract
The use of peer assessment through a multisource feedback process has gained recognition as a reliable and valid method to assess the characteristics of professionals and trainees. A total of 168 first-year medical students completed a 15-item questionnaire to self-assess their professional work habits and interpersonal abilities. Each student was expected to identify 8 first-year classmates to complete a corresponding 15-item peer assessment. Although the self and peer assessment questionnaires had strong reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.85 and 0.91, respectively), an exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 3- and 2- factor solution, respectively. The third factor was associated with items related to students’ personal attributes. Significantly lower mean score differences for the self-report assessment were found for all 15 items (Cohen’s d = 0.27 to 1.39, p gards to the construct validity and stability of measures between self and peer assessment measures. The need for self-awareness of students’ strengths and limitations, however, is recommended as part of their development in a profession that emphasizes self-regulation.
Highlights
Professionalism is a cornerstone of medical practice, reflecting the qualities we demand of our practitioners and the expectations we have for the medical students we accept into the profession (Papadakis et al, 2005)
We describe the implementation and results of a formative self and peer assessment protocol as a measure of medical students’ professional competence in their first and second years at a medical school in Canada
The major findings of the present study are that: 1) self assessment of professional competence was significantly lower in comparison with peer assessors on all questionnaire items, 2) distinct from the 2 factor solution for the peer assessment questionnaire, the 3 factor solution for the self assessment includes an additional subscale associated with personal attributes, 3) women medical students were rated significantly higher either by themselves or their peers on more items than were the men, and 4) on a one year test-retest of the self assessment questionnaire, students’ self-reported rating were significantly higher from year one to two on total and subscale scores
Summary
Professionalism is a cornerstone of medical practice, reflecting the qualities we demand of our practitioners and the expectations we have for the medical students we accept into the profession (Papadakis et al, 2005). Professionalism is a multi-faceted construct that includes a range of measures from the personal (e.g., ability to self-reflect and regulate), attitudinal (e.g., altruistic, honesty, integrity) and behavioral (e.g., dutifulness, collegiality), the use of MSF has the potential to be used as a formative or summative feedback process for evaluating specific components of professionalism. Within the context of medical practice MSF has been shown to be successful in evaluating physicians’ professional attitudes and behaviors from a range of stakeholder perspectives that include other physicians, coworkers and the patients’ themselves (Violato & Lockyer, 2006; Allerup et al, 2007; Brinkman et al, 2007; Lockyer & Clyman, 2008). The introduction of MSF at the medical school level to assess professional attitudes and behaviours reflects a progressive move towards acknowledging the importance the profession places on this role or core set of competencies (Epstein et al, 2004; ACGME, 2013). Used in part to assess the domains of competence such as interpersonal, humanistic, and teamwork skills, the 15 item peer assessment form was shown to distinguish between two domains of students’ professional competence: consistency in their work related habits and interpersonal habits
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