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Assessing clinical reasoning and decision making

Workshop

Workshop

10:30 am

26 February 2024

M212

Session Program

Thai Ong1
Su Somay2
1 National Board of Medical Examiners
2 NBME




Background and Importance of Topic 
Performance assessments and human raters are often employed in medical education to evaluate critical medical competencies (e.g., clinical skills via objective structured clinical examination [OSCE]). Although human raters provide insights not easily captured by automated algorithms, “... raters are human, and they are therefore subject to all the errors to which humankind must plead guilty” (Guilford, 1936, p.272). For this reason, human- generated scores, even with well-developed rater training and scoring guidelines, are prone to various rater effects and may be confounded with construct-irrelevant variance, posing a threat to validity of score interpretations (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014). Rater effects, or systematic differences in how raters evaluate performance, can stem from different sources, such as implicit biases and/or lack of familiarity with the rubric (Myford & Wolfe, 2003). Given the threat to validity, medical schools relying on human raters should investigate rater effects and their impact on inferences made from the scores. 

Several statistical approaches to identify and evaluate rater effects exist, ranging from simple to complex methods. The statistical approach chosen for an assessment program depends on various factors, such as number of raters, number of cases, and rater effects of interest. Therefore, having knowledge of both the assessment program (from the participants) and framework for selecting from the various statistical approaches (from the workshop) is ideal for determining the most appropriate statistical approach for an assessment program. 


Workshop Format 
In this workshop, we aim to provide participants with a) a primer on common rater biases and b) a primer on several statistical methods to identify and evaluate rater effects through applied examples from a formative OSCE designed to assess clinical reasoning skills. The workshop will be interactive in nature: 

  1. Introduction (5 Minutes) 

  2. Didactic presentation on common rater bias (10 minutes) 

  3. Group discussion (5 minutes) 

1. How does your school/program currently evaluate rater bias? 

  1. Didactic presentation on statistical approaches to evaluating rater effects (30 minutes) 

  2. Group discussion (5 minutes) 

    1. How can you apply what you learn today to your own program? 

    2. What are some potential obstacles to applying? 


Participants 
We encourage all medical and assessment professionals with any level of experience with performance assessment using human raters to evaluate students to attend the workshop. 


Level of Workshop 
We intend to create workshop material at the introductory to intermediate level. 


Workshop Outcomes 
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
 1. Understand sources of common rater biases
 2. Understand several statistical methods to evaluate rater effects Maximum Number of Participants
30 



References (maximum three) 
American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education. (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. American Educational Research Association. 

Guilford, J. P. (1936). Psychometric methods. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill 

Myford, C. M. & Wolfe, E. W. (2003). Detecting and measuring rater effects using many-facet rasch measurement: Part I. Journal of Applied Measurement, 4, 386422. 

Wendy Crebbin
Stephen Tobin1
1 Western Sydney University



The material presented in this workshop draws on the findings of research carried out in one department, at one major University Teaching Hospital in Victoria, Australia. 

The participants were: 26:42 third-year medical students in the surgical unit, and 17:21 unaccredited registrars and accredited trainees in the surgical unit. These were medical students and doctors at early to relatively senior levels of practice. 

Key findings of this research are that for every diagnosis there is an identifiable progression in each individual’s clinical decision making (CDM) from novice to competent/proficient level of expertise, and this can be supported, monitored, mapped, assessed and mentored to ensure more effective development. 

This topic is important because, whilst clinical practice is considered essential for the development of CDM(1), in general it remains under-researched(2), and progressive assessment of CDM needs further refinement(3). The principles, whilst refined in a surgical context, are applicable to all fields of medicine. 

The workshop will occur in three parts: 
  1. Introduction to the whole group of the researched model illustrating progression in CDM from novice to competent/proficient expertise and the kinds of experiences required including the kinds of behaviour at each level;
  2. Small group discussion augmented by both of the tools identified in the introduction with participants to relate the model and tools to their own experiences; 
  3. Large group discussion and debate about group findings especially whether they think that the tools will be useful to them in their own practices. 


Attendees should be involved in assessing clinical decision making or wanting to benefit from better understanding the sequence of development of CDM. How to support and better inform assessment of CDM are key outcomes. 

Participants with any level of experience can attend from novices to competent/proficient doctors. Mastery for most doctors will take many years of experience – the model supports same. 

After participating in this workshop participants will be equipped with tools that they can apply to develop CDM and assess how CDM affects diagnosis and management in their own practices. 



References (maximum three) 

  1. Nordquist J. Hall J. Caverzagie K. Snell L. Chan M. Thoma B. Razack S & Philibert I. The clinical learning environment. Med Teach 2019; 41(4): 366-372. 

  2. Hennrikus F. Skolka P & and Hennrikus N. Applying metacognition through patient encounters and illness scripts to create a conceptual framework for basic science integration, storage, and retrieval. J Med Ed & Curric Devt 2018; 5: 1–9. 

  3. Audétat M-C. Dory V. Nendaz M. Vanpe D. Pestiaux D. Perron N & Bernard Charlin B. What is so difficult about managing clinical reasoning difficulties? Med Ed 2012; 46: 216–227.