Abstract
Graduate entry medical courses (GEC) have been introduced into the UK to increase the supply of doctors and to widen participation. In addition to evaluation against these outcomes, the educational process should also be evaluated. One aspect of process is assessment and different types of validity evidence for the assessments used should be provided. This paper provides validity evidence for the assessments on a UK GEC, focusing on the 2010/11 assessment diet. The types of validity evidence provided are content, internal structure, relationship with other variables and consequences. Students’ GEC assessment results are used to determine whether or not students should progress to Year 3 on the traditional course. 66% of the learning outcome/body system combinations in the assessment specification for Years 1 & 2 of the traditional course were assessed in one assessment diet. Short answer questions performed “best” in terms of difficulty and discrimination. The reliability of three modules was just outside the recommended range of 0.7 to 0.9. GEC performance is at least as good a predictor of final year performance as Year 1/2 performance on the traditional course. Across the six written modules for 2010/11, 12 scores (5%) were in the borderline range. Judgement regarding the validity of interpretations made from GEC assessment results is left to the reader since such judgements should not be made by those providing the validity evidence. Similar studies should aim to use benchmarks to enable results to be more objectively evaluated.
Highlights
While in the USA and Canada most medical students have already completed an undergraduate degree before beginning their medical training, the majority of entrants to medical school in the UK and in many other countries are school leavers aged 18 - 19
In terms of undergraduate outcomes, a number of recent articles have shown that graduates from UK graduate entry courses (GEC) perform at least as well as students on five year traditional courses (TC) by the time they graduate (Calvert et al, 2009; Manning & Garrud, 2009; Price & Wright, 2010; Shehmar et al, 2010)
There is some evidence from Australia that GEC students are at least as well prepared for their first jobs as TC students (Dean et al, 2003), but longer-term evidence regarding postgraduate performance outcomes is not yet available
Summary
While in the USA and Canada most medical students have already completed an undergraduate degree before beginning their medical training, the majority of entrants to medical school in the UK and in many other countries are school leavers aged 18 - 19. This paper adds to the evidence base by providing validity evidence for the GEC assessments at one UK medical school, focusing on the sources of evidence for which objective evidence can be generated and, where possible, compared to benchmarks.
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