Assessment methods in medical education: a review

ABSTRACT

Good assessment is a major challenge in medical education. One of the major obstacle to a comprehensive assessment is the lack of familiarity on the part of medical educators about proper selection and effective use of different assessment methods. This primer [review] gives an overview of the basic ideas and vocabulary that one should understand in order to evaluate the quality of any assessment tool designed for the purpose of evaluating the undergraduates, postgraduates or other medical professionals. Applicability and effectiveness of different assessment tools are described along with their limitations and advantages. In addition, assessment methods currently in use are reviewed with attention to their psychometric strength and weaknesses. The data was collected from cross sectional studies, review articles, books on medical education and from guidelines for assessment between 1956 to 2013. Websites and other online resources of medline, NCBI and medscape were used to extract the data