Overview of medical student assessment: Why, what, who, and how

AbstractThe paper discusses various issues related to assessment in the context of the Arab world and focusing on 2 forms of assessment: multiple choice questions (MCQs) and objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs). The appropriate assessment system is determined by the content and method of teaching as well as the expected knowledge and skills of the final product, the health professional. Assessment motivates students to study hard. It is also used to make decisions on promotion of students. A good assessment system cannot be imported; it must be home grown taking into consideration the cultural, linguistic, and educational background of the students. Centralized assessment not under the immediate control of teachers in contact with the students is appropriate for standardized examinations like the United States Medical Licensure Examination (USMLE) but is associated with many challenges in internal examinations within the teaching institution: complicated logistics, marginalization of the teachers, and the injustice of treating un-equals as equals. Assessment covers the two components of medicine: the science and the art (practical). The MCQ format assesses knowledge and its applications. The OSCE format assesses practical skills. Writing good MCQ items takes a lot of effort and time to review but is easy to administer and score. The OSCE based on simulated patients (SP) has ably replaced the traditional long and short clinical cases but penalizes the advanced candidate who asks the SP questions off the script. I propose using SPs who actually had personal experience of the condition being tested. I also propose some items in the OSCE that are of critical knowledge for professionals and which should have higher scores assigned to them. Students should be failed in the whole examination if they do not know some of these critical items