A Six-step Approach for Standardized Student Assessment in Medical Education

High quality assessment is an essential and integral part of any educational process; we cannot separate it from learning and teaching. To ensure the effectiveness of the assessment process, rigorous and continuous steps and observations must be followed. These multiple steps and observations are necessary to avoid or compensate for any flaws that may occur in the entire assessment process.

This study was conducted in Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University (FOM-KAU) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in the academic year 2010/2011. It aimed at improving the quality of student assessment in medical education through standardizing the student assessment system by following a unique six-step approach and faculty staff members training on applying these six step with proper documentation of the whole process using exam worksheet. The study was part of CMCL-FAIMER fellowship project of the author and was conducted in Musculoskeletal and Cardiovascular modules which offered to second and third year medical students, respectively, in the FOM-KAU.

The results of this study showed significant increase in staff knowledge and skills regarding assessment after attending the comprehensive workshop on student assessment. Also, there was significant increase in staff satisfaction regarding trainer performance, program content, and program organization. The exam worksheet was fully completed in Musculoskeletal and Cardiovascular modules in the year of the study and faculty staff members in both modules became familiar with its components.

In conclusion, the six-step approach is one of the steps for improving the quality of student assessment in FOM-KAU through standardizing the assessment system and faculty development in the area of assessment. Over the few years after the study, there is marked improvement of assessment practices in FOM-KAU, which became in the focus of interest of both medical education department and the centre of teaching and learning development in KAU. This was manifested in the faculty development activities, moving towards electronic assessment, establishment of assessment unit and the international publications in the field of assessment. The six-step approach is now widely applied in Fakeeh College for Medical Sciences (FCMS) in its three educational programs, as a part of programmatic assessment through Assessment centre which recently established for central control of the whole assessment system in the college.