Seeing potential opportunities for teaching (SPOT): Evaluating a bundle of interventions to augment entrustable professional activity acquisition

Developing a dashboard for program evaluation in competency-based training programs: a design-based research project

BACKGROUND

Canadian specialist residency training programs are implementing a form of competency-based medical education (CBME) that requires the assessment of entrustable professional activities (EPAs). Dashboards could be used to track the completion of EPAs to support program evaluation.

METHODS

Using a design-based research process, we identified program evaluation needs related to CBME assessments and designed a dashboard containing elements (data, analytics, and visualizations) meeting these needs. We interviewed leaders from the emergency medicine program and postgraduate medical education office at the University of Saskatchewan. Two investigators thematically analyzed interview transcripts to identify program evaluation needs that were audited by two additional investigators. Identified needs were described using quotes, analytics, and visualizations.

RESULTS

Between July 1, 2019 and April 6, 2021 we conducted 17 interviews with six participants (two program leaders and four institutional leaders). Four needs emerged as themes: tracking changes in overall assessment metrics, comparing metrics to the assessment plan, evaluating rotation performance, and engagement with the assessment metrics. We addressed these needs by presenting analytics and visualizations within a dashboard.

CONCLUSIONS

We identified program evaluation needs related to EPA assessments and designed dashboard elements to meet them. This work will inform the development of other CBME assessment dashboards designed to support program evaluation.

The Impact of Electronic Data to Capture Qualitative Comments in a Competency-Based Assessment System

Introduction

Digitalizing workplace-based assessments (WBA) holds the potential for facilitating feedback and performance review, wherein we can easily record, store, and analyze data in real time. When digitizing assessment systems, however, it is unclear what is gained and lost in the message as a result of the change in medium. This study evaluates the quality of comments generated in paper vs. electronic media and the influence of an assessor’s seniority.

Methods

Using a realist evaluation framework, a retrospective database review was conducted with paper-based and electronic medium comments. A sample of assessments was examined to determine any influence of the medium on the word count and the Quality of Assessment for Learning (QuAL) score. A correlation analysis evaluated the relationship between word count and QuAL score. Separate univariate analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to examine the influence of the assessor's seniority and medium on word count, QuAL score, and WBA scores.

Results

The analysis included a total of 1,825 records. The average word count for the electronic comments (M=16) was significantly higher than the paper version (M=12; p=0.01). Longer comments positively correlated with QuAL score (r=0.2). Paper-based comments received lower QuAL scores (0.41) compared to electronic (0.51; p<0.01). Years in practice was negatively correlated with QuAL score (r=-0.08; p<0.001) as was word count (r=-0.2; p<0.001).

Conclusion

Digitization of WBAs increased the length of comments and did not appear to jeopardize the quality of WBAs; these results indicate higher-quality assessment data. True digital transformation may be possible by harnessing trainee data repositories and repurposing them to analyze for faculty-relevant metrics.