POSTER

Obtaining Pediatric Clerkship Feedback Using Online Resources

Paul R. Ogershok MD, Jessica D. Simpson BSW, Scott A. Cottrell EdD, Renee S. Moore MD, Norman D. Ferrari MD.

Objective: Obtaining traditional paper evaluations for our pediatric clerkship has been time consuming, and at times revealing limited student feedback. Our goal was to use the online resource software E*Value to determine if it could increase efficiency and amount of student feedback. Methods: The traditional clerkship evaluation forms were customized into the software package so that no actual change in the forms occurred. The students were sent an email notification that it was time to give feedback on the clerkship. By clicking on a link they were taken directly to the website to complete their evaluation forms. A comparison was made on the feedback from the prior year of traditional forms to the first year of using the online software. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software for mean, standard deviation and Student t-test.
Results: Our clerkship coordinator and clerkship directors agreed that the online software greatly increased efficiency of obtaining student feedback. The amount of information was also increased by using the online evaluations compared to the traditional paper forms (p<0.001). Completion rate for forms in traditional year and online year were about the same at 96% and 94% respectively.

Conclusions: It was felt to be easier to obtain, organize, and distribute feedback with this software. In addition almost 5 times the amount of feedback per student was achieved using this system. Students seem to prefer giving online feedback over using standard written forms. Due to the success of this initial pilot project our entire clerkship has been changed so that all evaluations are now performed electronically using this software tool.