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Assessment of psychiatric teaching: examining examinations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Gill Livingston ,
Stuart Cox ,
Cornelius Katona  and
Mary Robertson
Gill Livingston*
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, UCLMS, Wolfson Building, Riding House Street London W1N 8AA
Stuart Cox
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, UCLMS, Wolfson Building, Riding House Street London W1N 8AA
Cornelius Katona
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, UCLMS, Wolfson Building, Riding House Street London W1N 8AA
Mary Robertson
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, UCLMS, Wolfson Building, Riding House Street London W1N 8AA
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

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Aims and method

The study set out to consider whether the ‘end-of-firm’ examination in psychiatry fulfils its goals by examining the internal consistency of the end-of-firm examination and final medical board examination and the correlation between these examinations' scores and sub-scores. Students who failed their end-of-firm examination were followed to monitor their progress at final medical board examinations.

Results

One hundred and eighty students sat end-of-firm examinations and final medical board examinations. All the components of the end-of-firm examinations and the final correlated significantly with the total mark. The psychiatric essay was less well correlated with the final mark but correlated well with total essay marks. Students who failed their end-of-firm psychiatry examination at first attempt received extra tuition and only two failed finals.

Clinical implications

Essay writing ability may not carry over into high performance in other areas tested and may be a test of other skills. Extra tuition benefited failing students whose results fell outside the pattern of prediction. Thus the end-of-firm examination may be a useful tool if acted on to prevent student failure.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 22 , Issue 12 , December 1998 , pp. 726 - 728
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

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