Objective-Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are a valuable source of assessment for students' practical clinical and professional skills throughout their medical careers due to the OSCEs' capability to test multiple competencies in a standardized manner. Over the years, OSCEs have increasingly been integrated across medical programs to…

This innovation proposes an alternative to the traditional exam/test model. Many faculty members have likely struggled with the need to objectively assess their students and the push back they get from students in administering such assessments. The current article outlines a win-win solution that allows professors to objectively assess student…

The growing interest for measurement of learning outcomes relates to long lines of development in higher education, the request for accountability, intensified through international reforms and movements such as the development and implementation of qualifications frameworks. In this article, we discuss relevant literature on different approaches…

This teaching note describes one example of a shift from content to competence in a graduate MSW course teaching advanced mindfulness complex practice behaviors and skills for use in direct practice. The development of advanced mindfulness competencies and skills provides a conceptual base o shift teaching from lengthy lectures to experiential…

Writing multiple-choice test items to measure student learning in higher education is a challenge. Based on extensive scholarly research and experience, the author describes various item formats, offers guidelines for creating these items, and provides many examples of both good and bad test items. He also suggests some shortcuts for developing…

This article gives a brief introduction to the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and analyzes developmental progress of OSCE at both home and abroad and standardized patients' application in OSCE. Also, this article expounds application of OSCE in graduation exam of clinical medical students. Finally, this article summarizes…

This article describes ten key assessment practices for advancing student learning that all professors should be familiar with and strategically incorporate in their classrooms and programs. Each practice or concept is explained with examples and guidance for putting it into practice. The ten are: learning outcomes, performance assessments,…

This paper discusses how modifying the true-or-false (T/F) test, by requiring written explanations, reveals major weaknesses and hazards of the simple (unexplained) T/F tests popular among teachers. But, more important, the modification transforms the test into a very efficient formative assessment tool. It opens a window that allows a teacher to…

As a classroom teacher, Kari Smith realized that traditional objective tests don't always assess what students actually know. But tests are so deeply embedded in the education system that it would be difficult to do away with them entirely. Smith decided to make tests into learning tools. In this article, Smith describes three strategies for…

Examiners seeking guidance on multiple-choice and true/false tests are likely to encounter various faulty or questionable ideas. Twelve of these are discussed in detail, having to do mainly with the effects on test reliability of test length, guessing and scoring method (i.e. number-right scoring or negative marking). Some misunderstandings could…

The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and the Wisconsin Geriatric Education Center (WGEC) are committed to developing educational materials for primary care physicians in training. In response to the opportunity created by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) competency mandate, an MCW-led interdisciplinary working…