How we tackled the problem of assessing humanities, social and behavioural sciences in medical education

Abstract

Background: Assessment serves as an important motivation for learning. However, multiple choice and short answer question formats are often considered unsatisfactory for assessment of medical humanities, and the social and behavioural sciences. Little consensus exists as to what might constitute ‘best’ assessment practice.

What we did: We designed an assessment format closely aligned to the curricular approach of problem-based learning which allows for greater assessment of students’ understanding, depth of knowledge and interpretation, rather than recall of rote learning.

Conclusion: The educational impact of scenario-based assessment has been profound. Students reported changing their approach to PBL, independent learning and exam preparation by taking a less reductionist, more interpretative approach to the topics studied.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Lancaster Medical School for the opportunity to be creative about the assessment of our disciplines and, in particular, our special thanks go to Dr Gill Vince for working through the glitches in question wording with us. A debt of gratitude is also owed to Dr Jemma Kerns for her assistance with the Cronbach’s alpha statistical analysis.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no declarations of interest.

Notes

1. In Years 1 and 2, the exam consists of two scenarios and related questions, in Years 3 and 4, this is reduced to one scenario. This reduction acknowledges an increase in coursework assessment in Years 3 and 4.

2. We do not believe variation in student ability, seen in loosely structured questions, to be a product of subjective marking as all answers are double marked and moderated to a mid-point. Therefore, if the markers disagreed, this would result in a concentration of mid-range marks rather than the varying picture we actually saw.

3. Students’ comments were collated and form part of the introductory lecture to new students on the assessment of humanities, social and behavioural sciences.