Assessing Competence in Medicine and Other Health Professions

by Claudio Violato

Overview

This comprehensive, yet accessible, text demystifies the challenging area of competence assessement in medicine and the health sciences, providing a clear framework and the tools for anyone working or studying in this area. Written by a single, highly experienced, author, the content benefits from uniformity of style and is supported and enhanced by a range of pedagogic features including cases, questions and summaries. Essential reading for all students and practitioners of medical education, it will also be an invaluable guide for allied health professionals and psychologists with a general interest in assessment, evaluation and measurement and a useful library reference.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780429761829
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	12/07/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	430
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Claudio Violato is currently Professor of Medical Education at Wake Forest University School of Medicine WFUSM). Prior to this, he was at the Univeristy of Calgary as an educational psychologist (from 1983-2013). From 2001 – 2013 he was Professor and Director, Medical Education and Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine. He has taught medical education and psychological measurement both at the graduate and undergraduate level for more than 30 years, and has had extensive publications in refereed journals, technical reports, book chapters, books, and other scholarly products. He is a world authority in medical education assessment and measurement.

Table of Contents

Foundations. Introduction. Competence in Medicine. Basic Statistics for Testing. Validity and Reliability. Validity I – Logical and Content. Validity II – Correlational Based and Between Group Differences. Validity III – Advanced Methods. Reliability I. Reliability II. Test Construction and Evaluation. Formats of Testing for Cognition, Affect and Psychomotor Skills. Multiple Choice Items. Constructed Response Items. Measuring Clinical Skills with the Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCE). Checklists, Questionnaires, Rating Scales and Direct Observations. Evaluating a Test: Item Analyses. Methods of Setting Cutoff Scores (Pass / Fail). References. Glossary. Index of Terms. Index of Names. Appendices.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Lendita Haxhiu-Erhardt, MD (MetroHealth System)
Description: This is a well-researched, comprehensive book on the most current, internationally relevant, and recognized principles of assessing competence in medical education. It delivers complex concepts in an easy-to-understand manner through well-done chapter summaries, exercises, and other forms of active reading engagement. This is a great reference and a framework of study for all consumers of medical education, including students and educators.
Purpose: The purpose is to present a framework and a resource for all consumers of medical education with the most up-to-date practices, concepts, and methods of assessment, testing, and evaluation in medical education. The assessment, evaluation, and testing of competence continue to be challenging. This book systematically clarifies current principles of competence assessment and unifies the student and teacher perspective.
Audience: It caters to a wide audience of students, educators, researchers, and other consumers of medical education who are interested in understanding the complexities of the evaluation process and developing innovative measurements of outcome of educational methods. The author is a recognized expert in the field of psychometrics, assessment, research methods, and clinical reasoning and cognition. Currently an Assistant Dean of Assessment and Evaluation at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, he has held leadership positions at other universities.
Features: The book presents a well-structured pedagogical and practical framework for competency evaluation, assessment, and testing in medical education. It brings in international data on evaluation in medical education ensuring worldwide applicability and standardization of testing and assessment concepts. The book features a comprehensive glossary of terms, case studies, chapter summaries, questions, and exercises, as well as skillfully explained statistical concepts benefitting both students and teachers. It is unique as it is written as a textbook and a guide and approaches the subject from an expert's perspective, combining observation and pedagogical schemas with years of research across different systems of medical education. The author builds on historical principles of evaluation of physicians through the ages and systematically expands on the well-researched testing and evaluation methods in medical education that have appeared in the last two decades. One of the more controversial trends in education is the explosion of test-driven teaching by educators who have little understanding of testing structure and development. I have at times struggled with the reasoning behind the momentum that strengthens the divide between learner and educator and does not adequately fulfill the needs of either party. This trend has continued to grow, especially in postgraduate medical education and will follow clinicians throughout their career.
Assessment: This book offers a foundation and methodological framework for most modern practices of assessing competence in medicine and the allied health fields. It provides an overview of testing types and their objectives as well as newer trends of unifying testing with other objective measurements. It is a well-balanced, informative guide and a must-read for those even remotely involved in medical education.

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