Bunmi S. Malau-Aduli

Quality assured assessment processes: evaluating staff response to change

The purpose of this article is to assess the interaction between higher education and societal development. The question addressed is whether higher education engineers societal change or adjusts to global requirements. The answer is both. However, the impact of higher education is not easy to measure. It depends on the interventions undertaken by the stakeholders: the university, government, private sector, and civil society. These interventions may have contradictory effects. Education based on students’ desires can create highly skilled people who may not be required by society. The societal requirements of government, the private sector, or civil society may conflict. These conflicting requirements particularly can become conspicuous when higher education institutions perform in a global network.This article provides a comparative analysis of recent governance reforms in both Finnish and Portuguese higher education institutions (HEIs), following the OECD’s recent reviews of both countries’ tertiary education systems. While in the case of Finland the major problem was identified as being a lack of entrepreneurialism, Portugal was considered to lack effective, strategic higher education planning as well as innovative, flexible and responsive HEIs. The review teams pointed to common issues, despite different country contexts. As they recommended very similar solutions for reforming the legal status of universities, this encouraged national governments to undertake reforms according to their specific needs. By pinpointing problems, the OECD was seen to play an important role in this process and its recommendations proved to be close to the ideas of new public management.

Retention of knowledge and perceived relevance of basic sciences in an integrated case-based learning (CBL) curriculum

BackgroundKnowledge and understanding of basic biomedical sciences remain essential to medical practice, particularly when faced with the continual advancement of diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. Evidence suggests, however, that retention tends to atrophy across the span of an average medical course and into the early postgraduate years, as preoccupation with clinical medicine predominates. We postulated that perceived relevance demonstrated through applicability to clinical situations may assist in retention of basic science knowledge.MethodsTo test this hypothesis in our own medical student cohort, we administered a paper-based 50 MCQ assessment to a sample of students from Years 2 through 5. Covariates pertaining to demographics, prior educational experience, and the perceived clinical relevance of each question were also collected.ResultsA total of 232 students (Years 2–5, response rate 50%) undertook the assessment task. This sample had comparable demographic and performance characteristics to the whole medical school cohort. In general, discipline-specific and overall scores were better for students in the latter years of the course compared to those in Year 2; male students and domestic students tended to perform better than their respective counterparts in certain disciplines. In the clinical years, perceived clinical relevance was significantly and positively correlated with item performance.ConclusionsThis study suggests that perceived clinical relevance is a contributing factor to the retention of basic science knowledge and behoves curriculum planners to make clinical relevance a more explicit component of applied science teaching throughout the medical course.

Exploring the experiences and coping strategies of international medical students

BackgroundFew studies have addressed the challenges that international medical students face and there is a dearth of information on the behavioural strategies these students adopt to successfully progress through their academic program in the face of substantial difficulties of language barrier, curriculum overload, financial constraints and assessment tasks that require high proficiency in communication skills.MethodsThis study was designed primarily with the aim of enhancing understanding of the coping strategies, skill perceptions and knowledge of assessment expectations of international students as they progress through the third and fourth years of their medical degree at the School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Australia.ResultsSurvey, focus group discussion and individual interviews revealed that language barriers, communication skills, cultural differences, financial burdens, heavy workloads and discriminatory bottlenecks were key factors that hindered their adaptation to the Australian culture. Quantitative analyses of their examination results showed that there were highly significant (p < 0.001) variations between student performances in multiple choice questions, short answer questions and objective structured clinical examinations (70.3%, 49.7% & 61.7% respectively), indicating existence of communication issues.ConclusionsDespite the challenges, these students have adopted commendable coping strategies and progressed through the course largely due to their high sense of responsibility towards their family, their focus on the goal of graduating as medical doctors and their support networks. It was concluded that faculty needs to provide both academic and moral support to their international medical students at three major intervention points, namely point of entry, mid way through the course and at the end of the course to enhance their coping skills and academic progression. Finally, appropriate recommendations were made.

Peer review improves the quality of MCQ examinations

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of the introduction of peer review processes on the quality of multiple-choice examinations in the first three years of an Australian medical course. The impact of the peer review process and overall quality assurance (QA) processes were evaluated by comparing the examination data generated in earlier years (2008) with those held under the new QA regime (2009 and 2010) from the same blueprint. Statistical analysis and comparisons of overall examination performance were made by year. Regarding multiple-choice questions (MCQs), item analysis was used to compare the proportion of difficult and discriminating items and functional distractors on summative examinations in 2008 (pre-implementation of peer review) and 2009 and 2010 (post-implementation). The impact of peer review processes resulted in a decrease in the number of items with negative discrimination; increases in reliability, appropriate item difficulty, and numbers of items with significant discrimination. There was an associated improvement in the effectiveness of distractors for the MCQ items. The trend of overall improvement in the quality of MCQ items continued in 2009 and 2010. The introduction of QA processes, specifically peer review of MCQ items has resulted in a sustained improvement in the quality of MCQ items within our examinations.

Variations in liveweight gains, milk yield and composition of Red Sokoto goats fed crop-residue-based supplements in the subhumid zone of Nigeria

Variations in weight gain, milk yield, milk composition, nutrient intake and digestibility of Red Sokoto goats supplemented with crop-residue-based rations during the long, dry period were investigated. Ration A, the conventional concentrate ration, was used as the positive control, Rations B and C were the two crop-residue test diets, while Ration D the unsupplemented treatment, was used as the negative control. Each of the supplementation rations was fed at 1 and 2% of the goat’s body weight (designated as 1A, 2A, 1B, 2B and 1C, 2C, respectively). The supplemented group of goats had significantly higher ( P , 0.05) dry matter (DM) and crude protein (CP) intakes as well as nutrient digestibilities than the unsupplemented groups. DM digestibility improved with supplementation by a range of 4.1–27.9%, while CP digestibility improved by 17.1–42.2%, the highest value being in does on Ration A. It was evident that supplementation significantly (P , 0.01) influenced weight gains and milk yield of dams. Goats on ration 2C recorded the highest average daily gains of 39.29 g / day while their counterparts fed rations 1B and D lost 28.57 and 92.86 g / day, respectively. Ration 1C which comprised mainly of crop residue with much lesser protein levels than the concentrate ration, produced 54 kg of milk over a 90-day lactation period averaging 0.60 kg per day. Goats on Ration D had the shortest lactation length of 41 days and the least total and average daily milk yields of 10.2 and 0.25 kg, respectively. Milk from does on ration 2A contained the highest percentages of fat (6%), protein (6.33%), total solids (21.85%) and solids-not-fat (15.85%). Milk from goats on ration D ranked least with respect to all parameters studied. It was concluded that the goats made appreciable gains in the long dry season on crop-residue-based diets that compared favourably with the conventional concentrate rations. Ration C fed at 1% level was a good supplementary feed package for increased liveweight gains and milk production in Red Sokoto goats.  2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using computer-based technology to improve feedback to staff and students on MCQ assessments

The massification of higher education (HE) has led to an unprecedented increase in the number of students in the classrooms, resulting in increased workload for teaching staff, sometimes leading to a great reliance on Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) examinations with limited feedback provided to students. The central role of feedback in student learning is well recognised; however, it is often one of the poorest scoring items in Student Evaluation of Teaching and Learning (SETL) surveys. Teaching staff also need feedback on the quality of the examinations they set. In response to these key teaching and learning issues, this study developed a computer-aided system for providing meaningful and customised feedback on performance to students and the quality of MCQ assessment items to teaching staff. Furthermore, student and staff perceptions of the effectiveness and value of the feedback to learning were evaluated. Student experiences indicated that the feedback was timely, well presented, easy to understand and would aid revision for further study. In addition, the efficient provision of automatically generated item performance information to teaching staff allowed convenient quality assurance (QA) monitoring, informed staff of the progress of students’ learning, and enabled modification of teaching to better support student learning.

Improving assessment practice through cross-institutional collaboration: An exercise on the use of OSCEs

Abstract Background: This study was undertaken to improve assessment practice on OSCEs through collaboration across geographically dispersed medical schools in Australia. Methods: A total of eleven OSCE stations were co-developed by four medical schools and used in summative 2011 and 2012 examinations for the assessment of clinical performance in the early clinical and exit OSCEs in each school’s medical course. Partial Credit Rasch Model was used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the shared OSCE data. Evaluation of the quality assurance reports was used to determine the beneficial impact of the collaborative benchmarking exercise on learning and teaching outcomes. Results: The data for each examination demonstrated sufficient fit to the Rasch model with infit mean square values ranging from 0.88 to 0.99. Person separation (1.25–1.63) indices indicated good reliability. Evaluation of perceived benefits showed that the benchmarking process was successful as it highlighted common curriculum areas requiring specific focus and provided comparable data on the quality of teaching at the participating medical schools. Conclusion: This research demonstrates the validity of the psychometric data and benefits of evaluating clinical competence across medical schools without the enforcement of a prescriptive national curriculum or assessment.

Influence of Supplementing Pasture-Based Primiparous Holstein- Friesian Dairy Cows with Crude Degummed Canola Oil on Milk Fatty Acid Composition

The quest for alternative sources of healthy nutrients that facilitate the modification of milk without compromising drinking quality is a continuous research endeavour. The objective of the study was to quantify the milk fatty acid composition of pasture-based primiparous Holstein-Friesian dairy cows supplemented with crude degummed canola oil (CDCO) with a view to improving the milk quality for beneficial health effects. This study tested the hypothesis that incremental supplementation of grazing primiparous Holstein-Friesian cows with CDCO will alter milk fatty acid composition towards increased total monounsaturates. Comparisons were made between unsupplemented grazing dairy cows and their peers on dietary supplements containing low (25ml/Kg DM), medium (35ml/Kg DM) or high levels (50ml/kg DM) of CDCO in addition to ad libitum grazing access to pasture. There was no significant effect (p>0.05) of CDCO supplementation for eight weeks on the proportions of total polyunsaturated fatty acids (tPUFA), omega-3 (�-3) and omega-6 (�-6) fatty acids in milk. However, significant impacts of CDCO were observed on the proportions of 18:1�9c, 18:1�7t, total saturated (tSFA) and total monounsaturated (tMUFA) fatty acids (p<0.005), with a significant increase in the tMUFA/tSFA ratio in cows consuming CDCO. It was concluded that incremental levels of CDCO supplementation can modify the fatty acid composition of milk towards increased monounsaturates without any negative impact on grazing primiparous cows.

A collaborative comparison of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) standard setting methods at Australian medical schools

Abstract Background: A key issue underpinning the usefulness of the OSCE assessment to medical education is standard setting, but the majority of standard-setting methods remain challenging for performance assessment because they produce varying passing marks. Several studies have compared standard-setting methods; however, most of these studies are limited by their experimental scope, or use data on examinee performance at a single OSCE station or from a single medical school. This collaborative study between 10 Australian medical schools investigated the effect of standard-setting methods on OSCE cut scores and failure rates. Methods: This research used 5256 examinee scores from seven shared OSCE stations to calculate cut scores and failure rates using two different compromise standard-setting methods, namely the Borderline Regression and Cohen’s methods. Results: The results of this study indicate that Cohen’s method yields similar outcomes to the Borderline Regression method, particularly for large examinee cohort sizes. However, with lower examinee numbers on a station, the Borderline Regression method resulted in higher cut scores and larger difference margins in the failure rates. Conclusion: Cohen’s method yields similar outcomes as the Borderline Regression method and its application for benchmarking purposes and in resource-limited settings is justifiable, particularly with large examinee numbers.

Risk factors associated with academic difficulty in an Australian regionally located medical school

BackgroundDespite the highly selective admission processes utilised by medical schools, a significant cohort of medical students still face academic difficulties and are at a higher risk of delayed graduation or outright dismissal.MethodsThis study used survival analysis to identify the non-academic and academic risk factors (and their relative risks) associated with academic difficulty at a regionally located medical school. Retrospective non-academic and academic entry data for all medical students who were enrolled at the time of the study (2009–2014) were collated and analysed. Non-academic variables included age at commencement of studies, gender, Indigenous status, origin, first in family to go to University (FIF), non-English speaking background (NESB), socio-economic status (SES) and rurality expressed as Australian Standard Geographical Classification-Remoteness Area (ASGC-RA). Academic variables included tertiary entrance exam score expressed as overall position (OP) and interview score. In addition, post-entry mid- and end-of-year summative assessment data in the first and second years of study were collated.ResultsThe results of the survival analysis indicated that FIF, Indigenous and very remote backgrounds, as well as low post-entry Year 1 (final) and Year 2 (mid-year and final) examination scores were strong risk factors associated with academic difficulty. A high proportion of the FIF students who experienced academic difficulty eventually failed and exited the medical program. Further exploratory research will be required to identify the specific needs of this group of students in order to develop appropriate and targeted academic support programs for them.ConclusionsThis study has highlighted the need for medical schools to be proactive in establishing support interventions/strategies earlier rather than later, for students experiencing academic difficulty because, the earlier such students can be flagged, the more likely they are able to obtain positive academic outcomes.