'Rater training' re-imagined for work-based assessment in medical education

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Bibliographic Details
Title: 'Rater training' re-imagined for work-based assessment in medical education
Authors: Walter, Tavares, Benjamin, Kinnear, Daniel J, Schumacher, Milena, Forte
Source: Advances in Health Sciences Education. 28:1697-1709
Publisher Information: Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023.
Publication Year: 2023
Subject Terms: Education, Medical, 4. Education, Humans, Reproducibility of Results, Educational Measurement
Description: In this perspective, the authors critically examine "rater training" as it has been conceptualized and used in medical education. By "rater training," they mean the educational events intended to improve rater performance and contributions during assessment events. Historically, rater training programs have focused on modifying faculty behaviours to achieve psychometric ideals (e.g., reliability, inter-rater reliability, accuracy). The authors argue these ideals may now be poorly aligned with contemporary research informing work-based assessment, introducing a compatibility threat, with no clear direction on how to proceed. To address this issue, the authors provide a brief historical review of "rater training" and provide an analysis of the literature examining the effectiveness of rater training programs. They focus mainly on what has served to define effectiveness or improvements. They then draw on philosophical and conceptual shifts in assessment to demonstrate why the function, effectiveness aims, and structure of rater training requires reimagining. These include shifting competencies for assessors, viewing assessment as a complex cognitive task enacted in a social context, evolving views on biases, and reprioritizing which validity evidence should be most sought in medical education. The authors aim to advance the discussion on rater training by challenging implicit incompatibility issues and stimulating ways to overcome them. They propose that "rater training" (a moniker they suggest be reserved for strong psychometric aims) be augmented with "assessor readiness" programs that link to contemporary assessment science and enact the principle of compatibility between that science and ways of engaging with advances in real-world faculty-learner contexts.
Document Type: Article
Language: English
ISSN: 1573-1677
1382-4996
DOI: 10.1007/s10459-023-10237-8
Access URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37140661
Rights: Springer Nature TDM
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....12eb4343e4d86c81da5424839a4d09d8
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:In this perspective, the authors critically examine "rater training" as it has been conceptualized and used in medical education. By "rater training," they mean the educational events intended to improve rater performance and contributions during assessment events. Historically, rater training programs have focused on modifying faculty behaviours to achieve psychometric ideals (e.g., reliability, inter-rater reliability, accuracy). The authors argue these ideals may now be poorly aligned with contemporary research informing work-based assessment, introducing a compatibility threat, with no clear direction on how to proceed. To address this issue, the authors provide a brief historical review of "rater training" and provide an analysis of the literature examining the effectiveness of rater training programs. They focus mainly on what has served to define effectiveness or improvements. They then draw on philosophical and conceptual shifts in assessment to demonstrate why the function, effectiveness aims, and structure of rater training requires reimagining. These include shifting competencies for assessors, viewing assessment as a complex cognitive task enacted in a social context, evolving views on biases, and reprioritizing which validity evidence should be most sought in medical education. The authors aim to advance the discussion on rater training by challenging implicit incompatibility issues and stimulating ways to overcome them. They propose that "rater training" (a moniker they suggest be reserved for strong psychometric aims) be augmented with "assessor readiness" programs that link to contemporary assessment science and enact the principle of compatibility between that science and ways of engaging with advances in real-world faculty-learner contexts.
ISSN:15731677
13824996
DOI:10.1007/s10459-023-10237-8