In the context of medical education, the term “evaluation” encompasses a broad territory of inquiry.  Evaluation questions and strategies can range from a focus on learner’s experiences and abilities to larger organizational concerns characterized by questions about the curriculum, students, faculty, institutional processes or organizational mission. Regardless of the focus of a specific evaluation effort, the purpose of an evaluation is quality improvement.   Central to evaluation is the systematic collection of information for decision-making, usually as a process for documenting outcomes.  Since the early 1990s, there have been a variety of new strategies implemented to collect information for decision-making, moving beyond data that are readily available to efforts to identify and collect information that is more meaningful.  

In this one-hour audio seminar, Dr. Mavis will review the basic principles of evaluation, distinguish common evaluation methods and approaches, outline questions to ask when planning an evaluation, as well as present some current issues related to evaluation in medical education. His goal for this session is provide medical school faculty without formal training in evaluation with the basic concepts and vocabulary necessary to be knowledgeable consumers of evaluation.  Subsequent sessions in this audio series will build on the concepts presented in this session.