Red, yellow and green: What does it mean? How the progress test informs and supports student progress

Abstract

Objectives: Most medical schools using progress tests (PTs) provide feedback by utilizing a traffic-light system of green (satisfactory), yellow (borderline) and red (unsatisfactory) categories. There is little research assessing students’ perceptions or usage of this feedback. Therefore this study proposed to determine the effectiveness of formative PTs at informing and supporting student progress.

Methods: A mixed methods study was performed, involving a retrospective analysis of a results database to establish the predictive validity of PT categories and 11 semi-structured interviews to explore students’ perceptions of PT feedback in a graduate entry medical programme.

Results: Quantitative analysis revealed that students who always scored green performed better in their summative exams and graduated with a higher final degree than those who received a yellow or red category at least once. Qualitative analysis revealed that just over half of the interviewed students perceived the PT as having informed their progress. Most participants agreed that the current feedback is insufficient and doesn’t guide their on-going learning.

Conclusion: While this study demonstrated that the PT is a useful predictive tool for informing student progress, in its current format it’s not fulfilling a truly formative role and supporting student progress sufficiently.

Notes

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and thank the medical students who kindly gave their time to participate in interviews.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Glossary

Formative assessment: Formative assessment is testing that is part of the developmental or on-going teaching/learning process. It should include delivery of feedback to the student.

Wojtczak A. 2003. Glossary of Medical Education Terms. AMEE Occasional Paper No 3. Dundee: AMEE.

Predictive validity: The effectiveness of one set of test or research results as a predictor of the outcome of future experiments or tests.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com

Notes on contributors

Karen Given, MB, BCh, BAO, MICGP, MSc, DWH, DCH, is a PBL Tutor at University of Limerick Graduate-Entry Medical School.

Ailish Hannigan, BSc, PhD, is Associate Professor of Biomedical Statistics, University of Limerick Graduate-Entry Medical School.

Deirdre McGrath, MD, FRCP, FRCPI, MMEd, is Director of Education, University of Limerick Graduate-Entry Medical School.

Notes

1 SKE’s take the form of multiple-choice question, extended-matching question and short-answer question papers.

2 Of the 13 students with no QCA, four are on leave, three repeated a year and are yet to graduate and six left the course. Those students who repeated did ten PTs instead of eight over the course but were still categorized as either scoring “all green” or “≥1 flag” in the 10 PTs.