Assessment & Evaluation

CMSRU Student Assessment

What is Assessment?

Assessment is the cornerstone of education. Assessment tools quantify students' academic strengths and challenges. They give educators information about not only the performance of students, but also the performance of the curriculum. CMSRU uses a variety of tools to assess student performance at both the formative and summative levels. CMSRU's assessment team builds, delivers, analyzes, and reports on all assessments that occur in all four years of the undergraduate medical education curriculum.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment gives students feedback on their learning strengths and challenges and helps them identify areas where they need improvement in knowledge or skills before taking a high stakes examination or completing a clinical experience.

• Verbal Formative Feedback
  • Students receive verbal formative feedback from ALG, SW, and FMP facilitators in Phase 1 and from course directors, faculty preceptors, residents and other healthcare professionals in Phase 2.
• Formative quizzes
  • In each Phase 1 course, students complete weekly formative quizzes to bolster in-class and laboratory session education.
• Standardized Patient Experiences
  • In Phase 1, M1 and M2 students have standardized patient (SP) experiences in the Foundations of Medical Practice course.  They may also schedule SP sessions outside of course time.
  • At the mid-point of the M1, M2, and M3 years, students take a formative OSCE to identify strengths and challenges in their clinical performance.
• Step Preparation Exams
  • M2s take 3 Comprehensive Basic Science Self-Assessment (CBSSA) examinations over the course of the M2 year to become accustomed to the format and length of time of the USMLE Step 1 examination.
  • M3s take Comprehensive Clinical Science Examination (CCSE) and Comprehensive Clinical Science Self-Assessment (CCSSA) examinations at various points during the third year to help them prepare for Step 2 Clinical Knowledge and Clinical Skills.
• Shelf Preparation Exams
  • M3s take formative NBME Clinical Science Mastery Series examinations at the end of each block to assess their knowledge base in the clinical specialty they have just completed and help them focus their study for the high stakes shelf examination at the end of the M3 year. 

Summative Assessment

Summative assessments evaluate how fully a student has obtained the objectives and goals of the educational experiences, whether that is pre-clinical course or clinical block. These are high stakes assessments that make up a large percentage of the student's grade in most CMSRU courses.  Summative assessments at CMSRU include:

• Written and Practical Examinations
• Objective Structured Clinical Examinations
• Scholar's Workshop Capstone Project Deliverables
• Competency-based Assessments: Clinical Assessments
• Presentations
• Team Based Learning Assessment
• Active Learning Group Assessment

Program Evaluation

The education program at CMSRU is never static. CMSRU continually strives to enhance its curriculum to improve information delivery and student outcomes. All aspects of the curriculum are evaluated, both by students and by faculty. Evaluations are scheduled and disseminated by the assessment team. Once the evaluations are complete, the assessment team reviews all evaluations, summarizes them, and distributes them to the appropriate administrative personnel.

Faculty & Resident Evaluation

Faculty and resident evaluations are an integral part of CMSRU’s continuous quality improvement model and program evaluation. Students evaluate CMSRU faculty and residents at pre-defined intervals in the academic year. Students evaluate their interactions with residents and faculty in both the classroom and clinical environment. The assessment team is responsible for operationalizing all aspects of the CMSRU evaluation plan, from building evaluations with faculty through analysis and dissemination of results to pertinent leadership for review.

Medical Education Research

The assessment team is part of multiple ongoing medical education research projects revolving around the CMSRU assessment system. The team collaborates with CMSRU faculty members on various projects, as well as serving as the data repository for all CMSRU faculty and students requesting data through IRB-approved projects.

Continuous Quality Improvement Monitoring

At CMSRU, the Office of Medical Education incorporates a continuous quality improvement (CQI) model to guarantee our processes and procedures ensure the highest quality medical education program. Through our standard operating procedures and CQI model, we can ensure the CMSRU education program remains in full compliance with accreditation standards while upholding our program competencies and objectives. The assessment team is responsible for monitoring this process for the Office of Medical Education. These duties include monitoring of evaluation report distribution, creating special reports related to program evaluation review, tracking of the timeliness of grade posting, review of clinical encounter and procedure log reviews, review of evaluation compliance, and duty hour monitoring, to name a few.

Assessment Team

Matthew Gentile, EdD
Assistant Dean for Assessment 
gentilmm@rowan.edu

David Swope, PhD
Director of Assessment
swope@rowan.edu

Melissa Hunter
Assistant Director of Assessment
hunterme@rowan.edu

Jaclyn Hettinger
Assistant Director of Assessment 
hettingerj@rowan.edu