Association of Professional Training Evaluation to Content Evaluation

Abstract

Problem-based learning (PBL) is the main strategy used on the curriculum of the University of Girona's medical degree program, comprising more than 60% of each educational module. It focuses not only on evaluating medical knowledge and skills, but also on appraisal of students’ learning and teamwork abilities, communication skills and sense of responsibility, that is, professional values and attitudes, often referred to as professionalism. The aim of this study is to analyze the association between professional training evaluation and content evaluation results in the Medical Emergencies Module. PBL based professional values evaluation was conducted following an assessment questionnaire. Five tutors facilitated and conducted these evaluations in 11 different PBL groups with 7 to 10 students each. Content evaluation was carried out by content tests based on problem solving. In order to analyze correlation between the two variables, a Spearman correlation coefficient was calculated. A total of 106 student evaluations were performed, 56 in 2010 and 50 in 2011, within the Medical Emergencies module. Spearman correlation coefficient was 0.42. Rho value was higher in 2010 (Rho = 0.5) than in 2011 period (Rho = 0.39). Results were statistically significant in all analyses performed (p-value < 0.001) and showed that professional training evaluation is weakly associated with content evaluation