Dataset Information

Formative peer assessment in higher healthcare education programmes: a scoping review.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Formative peer assessment focuses on learning and development of the student learning process. This implies that students are taking responsibility for assessing the work of their peers by giving and receiving feedback to each other. The aim was to compile research about formative peer assessment presented in higher healthcare education, focusing on the rationale, the interventions, the experiences of students and teachers and the outcomes of formative assessment interventions.

Design

A scoping review.

Data sources

Searches were conducted until May 2019 in PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Education Research Complete and Education Research Centre. Grey literature was searched in Library Search, Google Scholar and Science Direct.

Eligibility criteria

Studies addressing formative peer assessment in higher education, focusing on medicine, nursing, midwifery, dentistry, physical or occupational therapy and radiology published in peer-reviewed articles or in grey literature.

Data extractions and synthesis

Out of 1452 studies, 37 met the inclusion criteria and were critically appraised using relevant Critical Appraisal Skills Programme, Joanna Briggs Institute and Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool tools. The pertinent data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Result

The critical appraisal resulted in 18 included studies with high and moderate quality. The rationale for using formative peer assessment relates to giving and receiving constructive feedback as a means to promote learning. The experience and outcome of formative peer assessment interventions from the perspective of students and teachers are presented within three themes: (1) organisation and structure of the formative peer assessment activities, (2) personal attributes and consequences for oneself and relationships and (3) experience and outcome of feedback and learning.

Conclusion

Healthcare education must consider preparing and introducing students to collaborative learning, and thus develop well-designed learning activities aligned with the learning outcomes. Since peer collaboration seems to affect students' and teachers' experiences of formative peer assessment, empirical investigations exploring collaboration between students are of utmost importance.

SUBMITTER: Stenberg M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7875268 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:IntroductionIn formative peer assessment, the students give and receive feedback from each other and expand their knowledge in a social context of interaction and collaboration. The ability to collaborate and communicate are essential parts of the healthcare professionals' competence and delivery of safe patient care. Thereby, it is of utmost importance to support students with activities fostering these competences during their healthcare education. The aim of the scoping review is to compile research on peer assessment presented in healthcare education programmes, focusing formative assessment. The result of the scoping review will form the basis for developing and conducting an intervention focusing collaborative learning and peer assessment in a healthcare education programme.Methods and analysisThe scoping review will be conducted by using the framework presented by Arksey & O'Malley and Levac et al. The primary research question is: How are formative peer assessment interventions delivered in healthcare education? The literature search will be conducted in the peer-reviewed databases PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Education Research Complete and Education Research Centre between September and December 2018. Additional search will be performed in Google Scholar, hand-searching of reference lists of included studies and Libsearch for identification of grey literature. Two researchers will independently screen title and abstract. Full-text articles will be screened by three researchers using a charting form. Studies meeting the inclusion criteria will be critically evaluated using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. A flow diagram will present the included and excluded studies. A narrative synthesis will be conducted by using thematic analysis as presented by Braun and Clarke. The findings will be presented under thematic headings using a summary table. To enhance validity, stakeholders from healthcare education programmes and healthcare institutions will be provided with an overview of the preliminary results.Ethics and disseminationResearch ethics approval is not required for the scoping review.

Project description:ObjectivesOver the last two decades, the number of scoping reviews in core medical education journals has increased by 4200%. Despite this growth, research on scoping reviews provides limited information about their nature, including how they are conducted or why medical educators undertake this knowledge synthesis type. This gap makes it difficult to know where the field stands and may hamper attempts to improve the conduct, reporting and utility of scoping reviews. Thus, this review characterises the nature of medical education scoping reviews to identify areas for improvement and highlight future research opportunities.MethodThe authors searched PubMed for scoping reviews published between 1/1999 and 4/2020 in 14 medical education journals. The authors extracted and summarised key bibliometric data, the rationales given for conducting a scoping review, the research questions and key reporting elements as described in the PRISMA-ScR. Rationales and research questions were mapped to Arksey and O'Malley's reasons for conducting a scoping review.ResultsOne hundred and one scoping reviews were included. On average, 10.1 scoping reviews (SD = 13.1, median = 4) were published annually with the most reviews published in 2019 (n = 42). Authors described multiple reasons for undertaking scoping reviews; the most prevalent being to summarise and disseminate research findings (n = 77). In 11 reviews, the rationales for the scoping review and the research questions aligned. No review addressed all elements of the PRISMA-ScR, with few authors publishing a protocol (n = 2) or including stakeholders (n = 20). Authors identified shortcomings of scoping reviews, including lack of critical appraisal.ConclusionsScoping reviews are increasingly conducted in medical education and published by most core journals. Scoping reviews aim to map the depth and breadth of emerging topics; as such, they have the potential to play a critical role in the practice, policy and research of medical education. However, these results suggest improvements are needed for this role to be fully realised.

Project description:In self-directed learning environments, students must monitor and assess their learning progress themselves. Formative assessments play a central role as instructional tools to train students in these self-assessment skills. Key to the effectiveness of a formative assessment as a training instrument is the degree of student involvement in the design and implementation of the formative assessment used to train them. Five characteristics are essential to secure a sufficient level of student involvement: (1) congruence (i.e., the tasks of a formative assessment must reflect the instructional content), (2) authenticity (i.e., the tasks of a formative assessment should be related to students' background and study context), (3) consultation (i.e., students should have a say in how their answers are evaluated based on which criteria), (4) transparency (i.e., no "mystery items"-the wording of the items must clearly addresses the targeted content), and (5) accommodation (i.e., all students should have the same chance to complete the items of a formative assessment). These five characteristics of student involvement were used to evaluate the quality of formative assessments that are employed to train undergraduates in a medical school in self-assessment skills. Different from extant approaches that typically rely on instructors' judgments to infer the degree of student involvement, this study uses a paradigm in higher educational research asking students directly about their perceptions of an instructional tool. Thus, here, students had to rate their level of involvement in the design and implementation of the formative assessments used to train them. A total of 140 medical students participated in the study. Multivariate statistical methods were used to analyze the data. The majority of medical students appreciate the use of formative assessments to teach them self-directed learning skills; but the results also show that there is still room for increasing student involvement-especially, for minority students.