What's the Evidence: Self-Assessment Implications for Life-Long Learning in Emergency Medicine.
BACKGROUND
The 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference, "Education Research in Emergency Medicine: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategies for Success" noted that emergency medicine (EM) educators often rely on theory and tradition when molding their approaches to teaching and learning, and called on the EM education community to advance the teaching of our specialty through the performance and application of research in teaching and assessment methods, cognitive function, and the effects of education interventions.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this article was to review the research-based evidence for the effectiveness of self-assessment and to provide suggestions for its use in clinical teaching and practice in EM.


CONCLUSIONS
This article reviews hypothesis-testing research related to self-assessment behaviors and learning. Evidence indicates that self-assessment is inherently flawed when used in isolation. We review a multi-dimensional approach to informed self-assessment that can serve as the basis for life-long learning and development.


CONCLUSIONS
Advancing EM education will require that high-quality education research results be translated into actual curricular, pedagogical, assessment, and professional development changes. The informed self-assessment framework is a method that is applicable to teaching and practice in EM.
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Margaret
M
Wolff
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Sally A
SA
Santen
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Laura R
LR
Hopson
Veterans Affairs, VA National Center for Patient Safety, Washington, District of Columbia.
Robin R
RR
Hemphill
MGH Institute of Health Professions, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Susan E
SE
Farrell
D003479:Curriculum / Q000639:trends; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D004635:Emergency Medicine / Q000193:education* / Q000639:trends; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D012647:Self-Assessment; D013663:Teaching / Q000592:standards*
clinical teaching; education research; emergency medicine; self-assessment