10 years of experience in adopting, implementing and evaluating progress testing for Saudi medical students

Objectives: The progress test (PT) is a comprehensive examination that is designed to match the knowledge acquisition necessary at graduation and monitors progress during the entire period of an undergraduate program. Qassim College of Medicine (QCM) began using the multi-institutional PT in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This study aimed to determine if the PT can be utilized to assess the progress of medical students at different Saudi medical colleges with different educational approaches, as well as whether this testing modality could be accepted by other colleges. Methods: Beside the establishment of a PT committee, comprehensive blueprinting was crafted to sample 200 A-type multiple choice questions (MCQs) from different disciplines. The PT is a paper-and-pencil model and is answered in a 4-h period. All PT items followed a uniform design. Results: In total, 13 rounds of the progress test have been conducted. The number of participating colleges increased from three (with 285 students) in the first test (May 2012) to more than 20 (with &gt;6000 students) in the ninth round (February 2017). The average % scores for first-year students ranged from 3.0% to 7.9% while the average scores for fifth-year students ranged from 34.0% to 43.0%. Conclusion: The conduction of this meticulously crafted test to evaluate knowledge achievement at medical graduation is a fruitful tool and helps to provide constructive feedback for test-takers and other stakeholders relating to their relative positions among other fellows at the national level.</p

Supporting traditional PBL with online discussion forums:A study from Qassim Medical School

Background: The Qassim Medical School first year curriculum includes a 5-week problem-based learning (PBL) block. Student evaluation has highlighted inadequate feedback and lack of student–student and student–tutor interactions. An online intervention may alleviate this. Methodology: For each problem, a discussion forum (DF) was created with 14 threads (one for each group) in virtual PBL rooms. Students ’ and tutors ’ perceived satisfaction of the intervention was evaluated and types of posts were classified. Results: By the end of the block, all academic staff involved and 123 students (95%) had participated in the DFs. There were around 2800 posts and 28,500 views. All 14 tutors and 102 (78%) students completed the online questionnaire. Of the students, 66 (76%) male and 36 (92%) female students responded. Overall, both students and tutors perceived the intervention positively. Posts included: reforming and finalizing learning objectives, posting the concept map constructed in the face-to-face session and questioning, encouraging and motivating each other. In addition, posts included tutors ’ feedback and redirection. Conclusions: Blending e-learning with conventional PBL may help overcome student-perceived shortcomings of conventional PBL and improve the learning experience, making learning more interactive and interesting