“Summative Assessment is a Waste of Time!”

Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of an Assessment Programme

A Qualitative study in a PBL Curriculum

Dr. Hanan Al KadriDr. Mohamed Al Moamary

KSAU-HS, COM. Saudi Arabia

Prof Cees van der VleutenMaastricht University. Netherlands

• Assessment affects what students learn

• Assessment affects how students learn

• Effects of assessment on learning been reported

• Students’ approaches to learning and their retention of knowledge differ

• Learning environment

• Assessment methods

• Controversies on its effect on deep approach

Introduction

Objectives

• Understand how and why students differ in their approaches to learning

• Understand how assessment affects deep learning

• Which barriers stand in the way of good assessment and learning

Method

• Phenomenological study

• Examine what happens when students direct their study strategies to fit with assessment

• How students and teachers experienced the assessment programme

• We explored students’ perceptions in 7 semi-structured group interviews

• Teachers perception in 12 semi-structured individual interviews

Study Setting

• KSAU-HS, COM, Riyadh, SA

• KAMC, a 900-bed tertiary care centre

• Nov 2007 to March 2008

• PBL curriculum

• Four-year graduate entry programme

Assessment Programme

Method cont’d.

Study population• Stepwise purposeful

sampling

• Clinical years

• Each interviews attended by 4 students

• Twelve teachers out of the pool of clinical years block directors and clinical supervisors

Data collection• Experiences with the

assessment programme

• Its effect on learning activities and strategies

• Each interview lasted for about 30-75 minutes.

• Reached saturation

• Voice taped and transcribed

Data Analysis

• Atlas-ti (Version 5.2)

• Line by line scrutiny of the transcript

• Themes were identified

• Refined in a cyclic analytical process

• Investigators' triangulation

• Member checking

ResultsStudents’ and teachers’ perceptions of the assessment programme

• 28 students interviewed in seven focus group interviews

• Mean age and mean GPA at graduation were similar between participating and non-participating students

• 12 teachers were interviewed

• Four themes were generatedSummative assessment Formative assessment

Continuous assessment Curriculum objectives

Summative Assessment

• Preferred summative as discriminating factor

• Didn’t agree upon its effect on future performance

• Doubtful opinion on the role of summative assessment in graduating better practicing doctors

• Were not able to decide the superiority of summative or formative assessment

Summative Assessment cont’d.

• Summative assessment caused anxiety

This stressful situation makes them resort tosporadic, patchy reading

neglect the exam resulting marks

• Summative assessment had no driving role in their learning, unfair, carries no educational message and waste of time!

• In reaction to this students became marks hunters, practicing several studying strategies

holistic reading

strategic and selective reading

selected objectives, preferences, type of exam, supervisors personality

Formative Assessment

• Majority of students preferred formative

• Helped to identify their learning objectives and improve their study strategy

• Teachers didn’t decline the importance of formative assessment

• Teachers thought that it is time consuming, increasing it will a be waste of time!

• Teachers took into consideration the effect of the college’s education culture on the implementation of formative assessment

Continuous Attachment-related Assessment

• Was preferred by the students

encourage them to read

keep up to the maximum

the best way to monitor the students

• Its weight should be sufficient to stimulate clinical learning

• Most of the teachers agreed with the students

Curriculum Objectives

• Assessment that reflects the curriculum’s objectives considered to be fair and reliable

• Assessment should not be standardised

• Teachers noted various objectives problems

• Awareness of the objectives is a must

Conclusion

• Assessment affects students perception to learning and how do they learn

• These effects are not uniformly positive

• Summative assessment programme offers little inducement to engage in deep learning

• Students showed a clear preference for formative and continuous assessment, which may foster a deeper approach to learning

Conclusion cont’d

• It is important to be aware of differing views being held by students and teachers

• Faculty improvement program and faculty time are important infra structure for formative assessment implementation

• Efforts to achieve more clinically relevant assessment with adequate balance between its various types is required

• Research are needed to decide this balance