Examining the generalizability of ratings across clerkships using a clinical evaluation form.
It is necessary to average multiple clinical evaluation form (CEF) observations to obtain a reliable score. Combining CEF observations across clerkships will provide more observations per student, but it is unknown how an across-clerkship generalization affects reliability. The authors conducted generalizability studies on balanced stratified random samples to examine the impact of averaging across clerkships. The study detected a student by clerkship interaction. Although the interaction magnitude was small, it had a large negative impact on the reliability of the mean score. The authors conclude that averaging across clerkships for the purpose of evaluating global clinical skills will produce a less reliable measure for a fixed number of observations than averages calculated within a clerkship for evaluating clerkship specific skills. The content specificity of clinical skills as measured by the CEF may resemble that found using other measurement methods.
University of Iowa College of Medicine, USA.
C D
CD
Kreiter
K J
KJ
Ferguson
D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000592:standards*; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D008511:Medicine; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013038:Specialization; D014481:United States