Improving assessment quality in professional higher education: Could external peer review of items be the answer?

Figures & data

Table 1. Characteristics of reviewers

Age
Mean, years (min, max)	32 (27, 63)
Gender
Female, n (%)	75 (49.7)
Male, n (%)	76 (50.3)
Position
General practitioner, n (%)	8 (5.3)
Junior doctor, n (%)	135 (89.4)
Mean number of months approved in specialist training (SD)	29.2 (16.2)
PhD student or researcher, n (%)	3 (2.0)
Other, n (%)	5 (3.3)
Workplace
GP surgery, n (%)	19 (12.6)
District hospital, n (%)	67 (44.4)
University hospital, n (%)	61 (40.4)
Other, n (%)	4 (2.6)

Response rate: 151 (88%) responded to the questionnaire.

Figure 1. External, double-blinded peer review. The green box indicates where the external peer review was incorporated in the item review process previously in use.

Table 2. Review decision. Review decision and subsequent changes made to items by item writer/examination committee

	Review decision			Total
	Approved	Revision needed	Rejected
Unchanged, n	n/a	125	42	1238
Revised, n	n/a	90	6	96
Deleted, n	n/a	14	5	19
Total, n	1071	229	53	1353