JMC Policy
Assessment policy for undergraduate medical students in Jinnah Medical College
Purpose:
The purpose of this Undergraduate Medical Education Student Assessment Policy is to establish student assessment practices within undergraduate medical education program of Jinnah Medical College. The policy has been developed by the department of Medical Education (DME), tasked to “establish, monitor, and update an internal assessment system throughout the entire undergraduate medical curriculum for MBBS.” This document is intended to complement the assessment policy of Khyber Medical University that is responsible for conducting annual summative assessments and certification of MBBS degree.
1) Roles of different departments in internal assessments
The structure of internal assessment in JMC will be formative, including both written and practical assessment (OSPE / OSCE) following the programmatic assessment policy of KMU. Assessment of clinical training also includes short cases, long cases and viva. Work-place based assessment techniques like Mini-CeX and Case based discussions will be gradually introduced in these years. The DME will have an oversight of the whole process of assessment. Module directors will be responsible for developing, organizing and reviewing the assessment items including MCQs and OSPE preparation in consultation with respective departments and faculty. Question bank development, written paper checking, results declaration and item analysis and its communication will be the responsibility of DME / examination department with the help of faculty. The schedules of assessments are developed by the curriculum committee of the college (CCC) at the start of academic years.
2) Assessment Plan The following is the summary of internal assessments plans
The schedules of assessments are given in study guides and will be available on college website. The frequency of 2 assessments will follow the modules and block of respective year. At least 3 internal assessments will be arranged in one academic calendar for each year (years 1-5). The assessments of year 1 and 2 will be held after each block / module. Similarly, the assessment schedule of year 3 and 4 will follow the same pattern. The written assessment of year 5 will be arranged in college while their practical assessments will be held in the hospital. MCQs / SAQs will be part of written, while OSPE / OSCE (including short and long cases) will be part of practical assessments. The questions used in written paper will be collected by the already available question bank which will be updated by the faculty throughout the year. The paper will be made keeping Ebels method of standard setting. To maintain secrecy of question bank Faculty will upload the questions through the LMS portal by the logins provided to them. The set paper will be then reviewed by the concerned head of departments and will be finalized and forwarded to the IT personnel of examination department for printing. Cumulative 20% marks of all internal assessments (10% in written and 10% in practical) are included in summative assessments by KMU and will be communicated to the university by the DME before the start of end-of the year assessment.
3) Standard setting procedure
A procedure that is used to determine a defensible cut score for all examinations in JMC is pre-determined to be 60% in cases of both written and practical assessments in accordance with KMU.
4) Item analysis
Item analysis of all written questions will be done in examination department at the end of the examination and the results of these will be shared with the respective module director. Questions having low reliability and validity (less than 0.5) will be discarded and appropriate changes will be done in the results of each student.
5) Question / item bank
All MCQs and OSPE / OSCE stations will be stored in aquestion bank to be developed by faculty and managed by the IT personnel and assessment coordinator of the examination section in a secret manner. These items will be used in future internal assessments and will also be shared with KMU to be included 3 in summative examinations. In case of leakage of items, these will be either modified or altogether discarded.
6) Examination day
Students who have less that 70% attendance in the respective module / block will not be allowed to appear in internal examinations. Attendance will be provided by respective departments to the examination section. No cellular phones will be allowed in examination venues. Students who try to steal the confidentiality of questions will be debarred from the current examination and his / her name will be presented to disciplinary committee for further action.
7) Remediation examinations
Remedial examinations will only be arranged for late comers of year 1 due to multiple reasons. This examination will only be conducted in block A (foundation and blood module).
8) Assessment of clinical rotations
The logbooks and history books used during clinical rotations will be used for internal assessment and 10% additional marks will be allotted for this purpose. These documents will be presented to the DME for awarding these marks. Similarly, logbooks and history copies will be given extra marks in end of the year practical assessments.
9) Appeal mechanism by students about results
In case of discrepancy or any other problem related to results of internal assessments, the students will write an application in the name of Director Medical Education highlighting the issues related to grace marks, wrong results, rechecking and re-totalling of papers marks. The DME then takes relevant decisions related to the issue in consultation with the head of department of the relevant department or course coordinator. There will be no grace marks allocation in MCQs, whereas 5 marks can be awarded during results compilation. Fee for appeal will be decided by the Dean.
10) Students feedback on assessment
Feedback for this purpose should be a regular occurrence and will be both informal and formal. Formal feedbacks are part of routine evaluations surveys conducted each year at the end of sessions.
11) Oversight
The college curriculum committee will have an oversight for internal assessments. Similarly, the DME will provide training opportunities for module directors, course coordinators, members of CCC and any other interested faculty member to help them develop the skills and expertise in developing questions, and conducting and evaluating internal assessments.