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9th Annual Meeting 
of the 
International Association of Medical Science Educators 

July 14-19, 2005
 

Abstract Category: Assessment

Poster ID: A4

A COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION SYSTEM FOR REVIEW OF A COURSE IN PROGRESS
Thomas V. Peterson, Ph.D., Vernon L. Tesh, Ph.D., Rebecca A. Baker, B.A., R. Kelly Hester, Ph.D. and J. Ben Green III, M.D. Office of Medical Education, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center College of Medicine, College Station, Texas 77843-1114 U.S.A.

Traditional end of course evaluation systems do not facilitate in progress curricular improvement nor allow assessment of implementation of suggested changes in courses which have received suboptimal review. In these instances, it may be inappropriate to wait until the end of the course to determine if improvement has occurred. Review of this course while it is still in progress (”mid-course”) would be most beneficial in determining if the attempts at improvement have been successful and, additionally, whether any changes need to be implemented while the course is still being taught.

We have devised a system for “mid-course” evaluation of a course to address these issues. This process consists of:

1. Student Survey Questionnaire. This instrument was specifically developed to address the areas of course organization, quality of the teaching, course workload and examination scheduling, faculty availability, helpfulness of the Course Director and overall course strengths and weaknesses.

2. Meeting of Course Directors with the Chair of the Curriculum Committee and the Co-Director of the Office of Medical Education to obtain the Course Directors’ opinions about the results of the student questionnaire survey and discuss their feelings about the course. This included a discussion on whether they thought the course had improved from the last few years and if any immediate changes needed to be made before the course ended.

3. Meeting with Student Leadership to obtain the class’ feelings about how the course had progressed so far and any concerns and suggestions they might wish to share with the Course Directors.

4. Report of “mid-course” evaluation to the Curriculum Committee for discussion and possible action.

5. Comparison of “mid-course” evaluation results with the standard end of course student and faculty evaluation to assess the impact of the new system.

Information obtained using the above procedure has provided Course Directors and their faculty important feedback on their course at a time when modifications for improvement in the current year’s course offering could still be implemented.

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