Both summative and formative assessments are known to facilitate student learning and understanding and help students to identify areas of weakness. However, few studies have investigated students' preference for either summative or formative evaluations, particularly in the area of preclinical medicine. The current study addresses this deficit by…

Students are assessed by coursework and/or exams, all of which are marked by assessors (markers). Student and marker performances are then subject to end-of-session board of examiner handling and analysis. This occurs annually and is the basis for evaluating students but also the wider learning and teaching efficiency of an academic institution.…

Collaborative testing has been demonstrated the ability to improve students' performance, enhance students' learning, and aid in knowledge retention in many different courses. However, this examination mode lacks the process of teacher feedback. Herein, a short teacher feedback from was added immediately after the collaborative testing to improve…

Optimizing the workload of university students is important for their academic performance and student experience. Large perceived workloads are associated with poorer academic performance and lower student satisfaction in university students. In response to student feedback in 2021, we redesigned a second-year undergraduate physiology subject to…

Laboratory practicals in life science subjects are traditionally assessed by written reports that reflect disciplinary norms for documenting experimental activities. However, the exclusive application of this assessment has the potential to engage only a narrow range of competencies. In this study, we explored how multiple modes of laboratory…

Learning objectives (LOs) are a pillar of course design and execution and thus a focus of curricular reforms. This study explored the extent to which the creation and usage of LOs might be facilitated by three leading chatbots: ChatGPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Google Gemini Advanced. We posed three main questions, as follows: "question…

Learning outcomes are an essential element in curriculum development because they describe what students should be able to do by the end of a course or program and they provide a roadmap for designing assessments. This article describes the development of competency-based learning outcomes for a one-semester undergraduate introductory human…

Formative assessment is vital for student learning and engagement. Social media platforms like Twitter have gained popularity in medical education, but little research has explored student perceptions of formative assessment through Twitter. This study aimed to observe participation rates in Twitter poll-based formative assessment and survey…

Misalignments in teaching pedagogies between secondary schools and tertiary institutions have exacerbated educational disparities among students from different backgrounds. Given the variation in students' educational background and competencies, there was a need to develop an Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) Foundational Knowledge Assessment to…

Medical education has gone online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Formative assessment is essential to facilitate the learning process in medical education. However, various challenges arise during online assessment, which include reliability, when done without monitoring and practical concerns like Internet connectivity issues. This study was…

Difficulty index and its derivative performance index (PFI) have been commonly used to measure student learning outcomes. However, these indexes have a high volatility and low sensitivity. This work has established the simplex learning index (SLI), which has a low volatility and high sensitivity. To construct SLI, students were divided into two…

Traditional oral examination (TOE) is criticized for the shortage of objectivity, standardization, and reliability. These perceived limitations can be mitigated by the introduction of structured oral examination (SOE). There is little evidence of the implementation of SOE in physiology laboratory courses. The purpose of this study was to…

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered university lockdowns, forcing physiology educators to rapidly pivot laboratories into a remote delivery format. This study documents the experiences of an international group of 10 physiology educators surrounding this transition. They wrote reflective narratives, framed by guiding questions, to answer the research…

The present study examined the relationship between second-year medical students' group performance and individual performance in a collaborative-learning environment. In recent decades, university professors in the scientific and humanistic disciplines have successfully put into practice different modalities of collaborative approaches to…

Review quizzes can provide students with feedback and assist in the preparation for in-class tests, but students often do not voluntarily use self-testing resources. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate if taking a mandatory online review quiz alters performance on subsequent in-class tests. During two semesters of a single-semester…