The following sections, developed by COMSEP members, provide an overview of principles of evaluation as well as detailed information about specific assessment strategies.

Evaluation Strategies: There should be links to the topics listed below.

Section A
Basic Principles of Evaluation: An Overview – Harold G. Levine

Section B
The Written Examination – David Kalwinsky & Omer Berger

Section C
The Oral Examination – Paul B. Kaplowitz, Renee R. Jenkins & Prasanna Nair

Section D
Performance Based Evaluation of Clinical Competence: OSCE – Linda Shaw

Section E
Videotaping as an Evaluation Tool in the Clinical Setting – Cynthia S. Samra

Section F
Computer Teaching for Education and Evaluation – Robert L. Janco

Section G
Clinical Assessment of Medical Students – Benjamin S. Siegel

Section H
Curriculum Evaluation – Paul Rudoy & Joseph Lopreiato

Section I
Evaluation of Faculty Teaching – Mary Ellen Bozynsky

Additional Resources:

Assessing instruction and student competency are critical to provide both the program and students feedback on their performance. Assessment and competency are becoming very important at all levels of medical training. Though not specific for the COMSEP, curriculum at this time the following links provide excellent reviews of assessment tools.

Writing test items: National Board of Medical Examiners’ (NBME) “Item Writing Manual”. Download the manual by going to http://www.nbme.org and clicking on the word “Publications”. Select “Item Writing Manual” and then choose to download the manual in PDF format by selecting “click here” in the second paragraph. On the page that opens, choose to download the “Entire Item Writing Guide” from the list of options. The guide will open with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

This is an outstanding resource for writing multiple choice questions with test content specific to medicine.

Assessing Outcomes at the GME level: The Outcome Project is a long-term initiative by which the ACGME is increasing emphasis on educational outcome assessment in the accreditation process. Expectations for increased emphasis on outcome assessment are reflected in changes to Program and Institutional.- This site provides an excellent overview of assessment tools and insight into the coming emphasis on outcomes. http://www.acgme.org/Outcome/

Internal Medicine Program Directors – OSCE and SP reviews: http://apdim.med.edu/ec/osce.htm Site contains literature review of articles to assessment with OSCE and SP in internal medicine.