Relationship among scores of medical student assessments in a new integrated curriculum

Purpose. The medical curriculum at the China Medical University, Taiwan was reformed in 2001. A new integrated curriculum (New-IC) that includes organ-based block, problem-based learning (PBL) and clinical skills and communication (CSC) courses has replaced the traditional discipline-based, lecture-intensive coursework. Multiple assessment instruments including multiple-choice questions, direct observation and preceptor ratings were used accordingly. This study describes our new curriculum, examines the results of student assessments and tries to explore the relationship among these assessments. Methods. The scores of two student cohorts obtained from written exams, PBL and CSC including history taking, physical examination and clinical procedure were calculated during one academic year. The relationship among these scores within each organ-based block was analyzed by Pearson correlation. Results. A total of 243 students who completed 12 blocks were assessed during the 2003 to 2004 academic year. Although there were some statistically significant correlations between the scores of different assessments, in general, the correlation coefficients in most cases were quite low, ranging from -0.233 to 0.377. Conclusions. Assessments used to evaluate knowledge, skill, self-directed learning and attitude in our New Integrated Curriculum were not correlated with each other. All instruments have their own strengths and weaknesses; therefore a good assessment program requires a variety of assessment instruments, with each one designed to discover something unique.