amee 2013 poster does eportfolio engagement predict performance in undergraduate medical education?
DESCRIPTION
Poster presented at AMEE 2013 looking at whether engagement with an ePortfolio (the NHS Education for Scotland or NES ePortfolio that most Foundation Year doctors in the UK use) predicts performance in summative assessments.TRANSCRIPT
Dr Laura-‐Jane Smith, Dr Rosie Belcher, Dr Deborah Gill Academic Centre for Medical Educa?on, UCL Medical School, London, United Kingdom
In this study there was no correla2on between engagement with an ePor7olio as measured by a novel engagement score, and end of year summa2ve assessment performance. A focus on maximising the benefit students can get from
ePor7olio use in rela2on to forma2ve assessment and lifelong learning skills is advisable.
Take home message
Does ePor7olio engagement predict performance in undergraduate medicine?
ePorDolios are a core component of postgraduate medical educa?on and training. Increasingly, undergraduates mirror postgraduate learners in the use of ePorDolios1. Assessment of porDolios is usually a combina?on of grading individual components and a measure of engagement with the ePorDolio. There remains some debate about engagement and aMendance as predictors of success in undergraduate and postgraduate medical educa?on2. Anecdotally it has been claimed that engagement with an ePorDolio is a predictor for other outcomes such as performance in end of year wriMen and OSCE examina?ons.
Background Summary of work Students were required to complete 16 workplace-‐based assessments (WPBAs), aMend and record 4 mee?ngs with their personal tutor and upload a number of documents to their personal library (both wriMen and peer assessments). In addi?on students were invited to use other elements of the ePorDolio such as the reflec?ve logs and personal development plans, but these were not required or assessed. We created a matrix to score ePorDolio engagement, including measures of students’ use of compulsory and non-‐compulsory elements of the ePorDolio, and the students’ organisa?on of contents (Table 1).
Summary of results As ePorDolio use increases in undergraduate medical educa?on, cau?on must be exercised to ensure that they are not used as surrogates of other outcomes without a robust evidence base. We plan to extend the study to the three collabora?ng schools, to further inves?gate links between porDolio engagement and assessment outcomes. Engagement with a porDolio is required for postgraduate learners to progress in training and retain a licence to prac?ce. Rather than a surrogate for knowledge and skills acquisi?on, porDolios should be conceptualised as assessing other facets of professional prac?ce not captured by exis?ng assessment methods. Seen in this light they offer an opportunity to support and develop essen?al lifelong learning skills, freed from the o[en rigid constraints of summa?ve assessment methodologies.
Conclusions
We assessed 90 randomly selected undergraduate ePorDolios (selected using a random number generator) and compared engagement scores to end of year summa?ve assessment scores. We used SPSSv20 for descrip?ve sta?s?cs and to calculate the Pearson coefficient. Mean engagement score was 5.4 +/-‐ 1.75. No correla?on was found between engagement score (range 0 – 10) and overall summa?ve assessment results (r=0.11, p=0.31), or with individual components of the engagement matrix. For example when WPBA number (range 9 – 40) was taken as a con?nuous variable there was also no correla?on (r=0.11, p=0.32).
Authors
0 1 2 Workplace based assessments <16 16 -‐ 20 21 – 30
Personal Library content* Not all required elements present
All required elements present
Personal Library content No extra material Extra material
Personal Library organisa2on Not organised into folders and/or file names unclear
Some organisa?on into
folders
Completely organised into
folders Reflec2ve logs/ Personal Development Plan
Not used Used
Photo upload / personal profile updated
No Yes
Personal tutor reports None 1 – 2 3 – 4
References
1. Buckley, Sharon et al. “The educa?onal effects of porDolios on undergraduate student learning: a Best Evidence Medical Educa?on (BEME) systema?c review. BEME Guide No.11.” Medical Teacher (2009); 31(4): 282-‐98
2. Hyde, Richard M., and D.J. Flournoy. “A case against mandatory lecture aMendance.” Journal of Medical Educa?on (1986); 61(3) : 175-‐176
Table 1. Engagement scoring matrix
UCL is one of four medical schools working collabora?vely with NHS Educa?on for Scotland to adapt the postgraduate ePorDolio currently used in UK Founda?on Schools for use in undergraduate medicine. The ePorDolio collects and collates large amounts of electronic data on students about their engagement with the programme, and the first year of adop?on provided an opportunity to inves?gate the links between porDolio engagement and assessment success.
NHS Educa?on
for Scotland
UCL Medical School
Bristol Medical School
Glasgow Medical School
Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Maximum score was 14. Students comple?ng the compulsory elements with no addi?onal elements scored 4.
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
180
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Summa2
ve end
of y
ear e
xamina2
on
score
ePor7olio engagement score
Plot of ePor7olio engagement score against score in summa2ve end of year examina2on score.
Plot of engagement score vs examina2on score