Search

Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. Introduction: In continuing professional development (CPD), educators face the need to develop and implement innovative assessment strategies to adhere to accreditation standards and support lifelong learning. However, little is known about the development and validation of these assessment practices. We aimed to document the breadth and depth of what is known about the development and implementation of assessment practices within CPD activities. Methods: We conducted a scoping review using the framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and updated in 2020. We examined five databases and identified 1733 abstracts. Two team members screened titles and abstracts for inclusion/exclusion. After data extraction, we conducted a descriptive analysis of quantitative data and a thematic analysis of qualitative data. Results: A total of 130 studies were retained for the full review. Most reported assessments are written assessments (n = 100), such as multiple-choice items (n = 79). In 99 studies, authors developed an assessment for research purpose rather than for the CPD activity itself. The assessment validation process was detailed in 105 articles. In most cases, the authors examined the content with experts (n = 57) or pilot-tested the assessment (n = 50). We identified three themes: 1-satisfaction with assessment choices; 2-difficulties experienced during the administration of the assessment; and 3-complexity of the validation process. Discussion: Building on the adage "assessment drives learning," it is imperative that the CPD practices contribute to the intended learning and limit the unintended negative consequences of assessment. Our results suggest that validation processes must be considered and adapted within CPD contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic provoked an urgency for many educators to integrate digital information and communication technologies in their educational practices. We explored how faculty members tackled the task of adapting their assessment practices during the pandemic to identify what is required to sustain and favour future quality development and implementation of e‐assessment in higher education. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, we conducted semi‐structured interviews with thirty‐one individuals six months into the COVID‐19 pandemic. We identified four major themes in participants' discourse about the integration of e‐assessment during the COVID‐19 pandemic: (a) the considerations they had for the potential consequences on students and how they considered this while deciding how to move forward, (b) the preoccupations for the potential for cheating, (c) the importance of pedagogical alignment, and (d) the affordances available to them. While the COVID‐19 pandemic highlighted the fact that higher education institutions were not prepared for a pivot to‐ or greater integration of‐ e‐assessment, it also provided the tipping‐point to do so. In other words, it offered an unprecedented opportunity to critically appraise and change assessment practices, this opportunity was also a very challenging balancing act of considering the social consequences of assessment, and the alignment within set affordances. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicThe advantages of e‐assessment include the opportunity for rapid‐, even immediate‐, feedback.The integration of digital information and communication technologies to assessment practices is a source of stress and anxiety for some students.The move towards e‐assessment increases faculty members' workload.What this paper addsHow cheating, anxiety and workload were considered in the context of a forced and rushed change to e‐assessment because of the COVID‐19 pandemic.The COVID‐19 pandemic offered an opportunity to faculty members to take a critical look at their assessment practices and increase their alignment with learning outcomes.Faculty members considered the consequences of their decisions on students when making changes to their assessment.Implications for practice and/or policyMoving to e‐assessment is an opportunity to align the assessment practice with students' future professional practice, or in other words it is an opportunity to increase the authenticity of the assessment.A better integration of information and communication technology to assessment practices will require to provide educators with skills, time, evidence‐informed recommendations, and institutional support among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Tutorial-based assessment commonly used in problem-based learning (PBL) is thought to provide information about students which is different from that gathered with traditional assessment strategies such as multiple-choice questions or short-answer questions. Although multiple-observations within units in an undergraduate medical education curriculum foster more reliable scores, that evaluation design is not always practically feasible. Thus, this study investigated the overall reliability of a tutorial-based program of assessment, namely the Tutotest-Lite. Methods More specifically, scores from multiple units were used to profile clinical domains for the first two years of a system-based PBL curriculum. Results G-Study analysis revealed an acceptable level of generalizability, with g-coefficients of 0.84 and 0.83 for Years 1 and 2, respectively. Interestingly, D-Studies suggested that as few as five observations over one year would yield sufficiently reliable scores. Conclusions Overall, the results from this study support the use of the Tutotest-Lite to judge clinical domains over different PBL units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]