title: Making medical student course evaluations meaningful: implementation of an intensive course review protocol.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ongoing course evaluation is a key component of quality improvement in higher education. The complexities associated with delivering high quality medical education programs involving multiple lecturers can make course and instructor evaluation challenging. We describe the implementation and evaluation of an "intensive course review protocol" in an undergraduate medical program
  
  
  METHODS
  We examined pre-clerkship courses from 2006 to 2011 - prior to and following protocol implementation. Our non-parametric analysis included Mann-Whitney U tests to compare the 2006/07 and 2010/11 academic years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We included 30 courses in our analysis. In the 2006/07 academic year, 13/30 courses (43.3 %) did not meet the minimum benchmark and were put under intensive review. By 2010/11, only 3/30 courses (10.0 %) were still below the minimum benchmark. Compared to 2006/07, courses ratings in the 2010/11 year were significantly higher (p = 0.004). However, during the study period mean response rates fell from 76.5 % in 2006/07 to 49.7 % in 2010/11.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest an intensive course review protocol can have a significant impact on pre-clerkship course ratings in an undergraduate medical program. Reductions in survey response rates represent an ongoing challenge in the interpretation of student feedback.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada. flemingp@mun.ca.|Division of Dermatology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. flemingp@mun.ca.|Centre for Collaborative Health Professional Education, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Room 2901, Health Sciences Centre, St. John's, NL, A1B 3V6, Canada. flemingp@mun.ca.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fleming
authors.affiliation: Center for Collaborative Health Professional Education and Division of Community Health & Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada. oheath@mun.ca.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Heath
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada. agoodrid@mun.ca.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Goodridge
authors.affiliation: Center for Collaborative Health Professional Education and Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada. vcurran@mun.ca.
authors.forename: Vernon
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Curran
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D003479:Curriculum / Q000592:standards*; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D017145:Models, Educational; D009523:Newfoundland and Labrador; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires