Comprehensive Evaluation and Formative Assessment in Clinical Education
Clinical education represents a crucial stage for future physicians to acquire specialized knowledge and skills while fostering the judgment and responsiveness required in clinical settings. Within this process, comprehensive evaluation and formative assessment play significant roles with distinct purposes. While complementary, each assessment method holds its own vital role. Continuous feedback through formative assessment and final confirmation of competencies through comprehensive evaluation are indispensable for medical students to grow into highly proficient healthcare providers required in clinical settings. Properly integrating and implementing these assessments as educators is key to further enhancing the quality of medical education.
Comprehensive Evaluation: Assessing Overall Competence
Comprehensive evaluation is conducted to determine whether learners have achieved certain standards and objectives upon completion of their clinical training. This includes, for example, post-CC OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination after clinical clerkship). It serves as an essential criterion to confirm whether students have reached the overall competency levels required when they will actually engage in patient care in the future, rather than being feedback-oriented.
Formative Assessment: Supporting the Learning Process
Formative assessment aims to support the learning process by monitoring learners’ progress in real-time and providing adjustments or guidance as necessary. This assessment is conducted to help learners become aware of their own understanding and skills and to identify areas for improvement through feedback. For instance, Mini-CEX (Mini Clinical Evaluation Exercise) functions as part of formative assessment, where supervising physicians directly observe trainees’ clinical skills and provide specific feedback on the spot.
