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| LETTER TO EDITOR |
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| Year : 2019 | Volume
: 17
| Issue : 2 | Page : 44 |
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Scope of programmatic assessment in ensuring better medical education delivery in India
Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava1, Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava2
1 Vice-Principal Curriculum, Member of the Medical Education Unit and Institute Research Council, Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth – Deemed to be University, Ammapettai, Nellikuppam, Chengalpet District, Tamil Nadu, India
2 Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth – Deemed to be University, Ammapettai, Nellikuppam, Chengalpet District, Tamil Nadu, India
| Date of Submission | 25-Jun-2018 |
| Date of Acceptance | 08-Aug-2019 |
| Date of Web Publication | 29-Aug-2019 |
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava
Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth –Deemed To Be University, TiruporurGuduvancherry Main Road, Ammapettai, Nellikuppam, Chengalpet District 603 108, Tamil Nadu
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/cmi.cmi_28_18
How to cite this article:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS. Scope of programmatic assessment in ensuring better medical education delivery in India. Curr Med Issues 2019;17:44 |
How to cite this URL:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS. Scope of programmatic assessment in ensuring better medical education delivery in India. Curr Med Issues [serial online] 2019 [cited 2023 May 31];17:44. Available from: https://www.cmijournal.org/text.asp?2019/17/2/44/265825 |
Dear Sir,
Medical education delivery in India for many decades has been done through the traditional curriculum, wherein more emphasis was toward the knowledge component with a single aim to acquire the knowledge. In continuation, the affective and skill component was ignored and minimal attention was given toward the application of the gained knowledge. Likewise, the traditional curriculum has many shortcomings on the assessment front, with more emphasis on the summative assessments and all assessments being criterion-referenced, which have failed to assess the students effectively.
Programmatic assessment has emerged as a promising solution to deal with the existing deficiencies in the traditional curriculum.[1] Programmatic assessment envisages a set of periodic formative assessments, all of which are taken into account for the high stakes decision.[1] The best part is that students' performance is shared with them by the assigned faculty member so that students can understand the areas wherein they should take more efforts.[1],[2] At the same time, due weightage is given to the outcomes of informal assessments and it also becomes a component before a high stake decision is taken.[2] The underlying principle of the approach is to remove subjectivity and neutralize the scope of personal attributes, family conditions, financial status, etc., that can influence the final outcome during summative assessments.[2]
Keeping in mind the merits of programmatic assessment, it is high time that all the medical colleges in India should adopt it for having a better outcome.[1] There are no doubts that for the successful implementation, a structured and planned approach has to be adopted.[3],[4] The priority should be to design a comprehensive plan for assessment, comprising all details pertaining to the examination well in advance.[1] It has to be done for all the subjects and all the staff members have to be trained about the entire process of assessment.[4] At the same time, all the formative assessments should be conducted with an ultimate intention to improve the students through constructive feedback.[3]
Moreover, a robust system should be designed for aggregating information from all periodic formal assessments.[4] The basic rationale for this is to help the head of the department to take a well-informed decision considering the performance of the students in all formative assessments and other informal assessments.[1],[4] As far as possible, the corrective measures should be tailor-made to each student by the assigned mentor.[2],[3] Further, the complete process of assessment needs to be monitored, and depending on the outcomes, the plan of assessment should be revised.[4] It is quite obvious that to accomplish better learning outcomes among students, we have to create platform for the students and faculty member to interact continuously.[3] Finally, we should always use the results of the assessment in conducting the evaluation of the curriculum.[1],[2],[3],[4]
To conclude, programmatic assessment has emerged as an effective solution to bridge the deficiencies linked with the traditional curriculum. It is the need of the hour to ensure that all stakeholders adopt a collective approach for enabling better delivery of medical education.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
| References | |  |
| 1. | Singh T. Student assessment: Moving over to programmatic assessment. Int J Appl Basic Med Res 2016;6:149-50.  |
| 2. | Wilkinson TJ, Tweed MJ. Deconstructing programmatic assessment. Adv Med Educ Pract 2018;9:191-7. |
| 3. | Heeneman S, Oudkerk Pool A, Schuwirth LW, van der Vleuten CP, Driessen EW. The impact of programmatic assessment on student learning: Theory versus practice. Med Educ 2015;49:487-98. |
| 4. | Timmerman AA, Dijkstra J. A practical approach to programmatic assessment design. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract 2017;22:1169-82. |
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