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.
Kreiter
C D
CD
University of Iowa College of Medicine, USA.
Ferguson
K J
KJ
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