Dear Sir
Recently, my stint in clinical research required me to achieve satisfactory competency in statistics. A semester was set out to undertake teaching on an array of statistical methods. The first half of each session demanded lecture-based teaching whilst the last was spent undertaking various tutorials involving the production of statistical tables and graphs, depending on the question in nature. The final part of the semester comprised a two-hour assessment, an assessment which was open book.
Open book assessments are certainly a rarity in medical school. I personally did not undertake any but with the advent of the prescribing safety assessment this year and access to the BNF, the concept of assessment in the traditional sense has certainly been revolutionized.
From a personal perspective, I look forward to reading formal research around the topic – the open book statistical assessment was certainly not a walk in the park. The format of the assessment required significant theoretical application. The book simply allowed for refreshment of factual knowledge. The assessment relied on candidates being able to interpret data provided and comment accordingly. For example, research data with confidence intervals, p values, odds ratios, Wald and degrees of freedom values featured heavily. In addition, candidates were asked to comment on assumptions made, potential confounding variables and additional univariate and multivariate tests of choice, as well as construct potential tables for data we would like to collect for specific research questions.
In medical practice, postgraduate training often relies on referring to current literature when managing a patient appropriately, particularly evidence-based specialty guidelines. Of course, it is important for candidates to learn the theory; but I wonder whether the use of open book assessments could potentially be a good thing. If constructed properly, they could provide a more suitable platform of theory application as opposed to simple recall.
Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest.