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Construct & Background: In order to determine students' level of interprofessional competencies, there is a need for well-considered and thoroughly designed interprofessional assessments. Current literature about interprofessional assessments focuses largely on the development and validation of assessment instruments such as self-assessments or questionnaires to assess students' knowledge or attitudes. Less is known about the design and validity of integral types of assessment in interprofessional education, such as case-based assessments, or performance assessments. The aim of this study is to evaluate the evidence for and threats to the validity of the decisions about students' interprofessional performances based on such integral assessment task. We investigated whether the assessment prototype is a precursor to practice (authenticity) and whether the assessment provides valid information to determine the level of interprofessional competence (scoring)., Approach: We used a design-based qualitative research design in which we conducted three group interviews with teachers, students, and interprofessional assessment experts. In semi-structured group interviews, participants evaluated the evidence for and threats to the validity of an interprofessional assessment task, which were analyzed using deductive and inductive content analysis., Findings: Although both evidence for and threats to validity were mentioned, the threats refuting the assessment's validity prevailed. Evidence for the authenticity aspect was that the assessment task, conducting a team meeting, is common in practice. However, its validity was questioned because the assessment task appeared more structured as compared to practice. The most frequently mentioned threat to the scoring aspect was that the process of interprofessional collaboration between the students could not be evaluated sufficiently by means of this assessment task., Conclusions: This study showed that establishing interprofessional assessment validity requires three major balancing acts. The first is the balance between authenticity and complexity. As interprofessional practice and competencies are complex, interprofessional tasks require build-up or guidance toward this complexity and chaotic practice. The second is that between authenticity and scoring, in which optimal authenticity might lead to threats to scoring and vice versa. Simultaneous optimal authenticity and scoring seems impossible, requiring ongoing evaluation and monitoring of interprofessional assessment validity to ensure authentic yet fair assessments for all participating professions. The third balancing act is between team scoring and individual scoring. As interprofessional practice requires collaboration and synthesis of diverse professions, the team process is at the heart of solving interprofessional tasks. However, to stimulate individual accountability, the individual performance should not be neglected.

To develop independent healthcare professionals able to collaborate in interprofessional teams, health professions education aims to support students in transitioning from an individual perspective to interprofessional collaboration. The five elements that yield the conditions for effective interprofessional collaboration are: (1) positive interdependence, (2) individual accountability, (3) promotive interaction, (4) interpersonal skills, and (5) reflection on team processes. The aim of the current study is to gain insights into how to design tasks to assess a student team as a whole on their interprofessional collaboration. This was a pilot study using a qualitative design to evaluate an interprofessional assessment task. Four interprofessional student teams, comprising physiotherapy, occupational therapy, arts therapy and nursing students (N = 13), completed this task and five assessors used a rubric to assess video recordings of the teams' task completion, and then participated in a group interview. The completed rubrics and the interview transcript were analyzed using content analysis. Findings showed that the combination of individual preparation, an interprofessional team meeting resulting in care agreements and team reflection was a strength of the assessment task, enabling the task to elicit sufficient promotive interaction between students. Areas for improvement of the assessment task were however, due to a lack of interdependence, the care agreements which now proved to be the sum of students' intraprofessional ideas rather than an interprofessional integration of agreements. Additionally, assessors suggested that a series of varying assessment tasks is required to draw conclusions about students' interprofessional competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Feedback processes are crucial for learning, guiding improvement, and enhancing performance. In workplace-based learning settings, diverse teaching and assessment activities are advocated to be designed and implemented, generating feedback that students use, with proper guidance, to close the gap between current and desired performance levels. Since productive feedback processes rely on observed information regarding a student's performance, it is imperative to establish structured feedback activities within undergraduate workplace-based learning settings. However, these settings are characterized by their unpredictable nature, which can either promote learning or present challenges in offering structured learning opportunities for students. This scoping review maps literature on how feedback processes are organised in undergraduate clinical workplace-based learning settings, providing insight into the design and use of feedback. Methods: A scoping review was conducted. Studies were identified from seven databases and ten relevant journals in medical education. The screening process was performed independently in duplicate with the support of the StArt program. Data were organized in a data chart and analyzed using thematic analysis. The feedback loop with a sociocultural perspective was used as a theoretical framework. Results: The search yielded 4,877 papers, and 61 were included in the review. Two themes were identified in the qualitative analysis: (1) The organization of the feedback processes in workplace-based learning settings, and (2) Sociocultural factors influencing the organization of feedback processes. The literature describes multiple teaching and assessment activities that generate feedback information. Most papers described experiences and perceptions of diverse teaching and assessment feedback activities. Few studies described how feedback processes improve performance. Sociocultural factors such as establishing a feedback culture, enabling stable and trustworthy relationships, and enhancing student feedback agency are crucial for productive feedback processes. Conclusions: This review identified concrete ideas regarding how feedback could be organized within the clinical workplace to promote feedback processes. The feedback encounter should be organized to allow follow-up of the feedback, i.e., working on required learning and performance goals at the next occasion. The educational programs should design feedback processes by appropriately planning subsequent tasks and activities. More insight is needed in designing a full-loop feedback process, in which specific attention is needed in effective feedforward practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]