Teaching Development Grants
Completed TDG Projects

Assessment and Feedback

Advancing the Assessment of Clinical Experiential Learning in Medical and Health Sciences Education


Abstract

Experiential learning is a distinctive feature of the new/ four-year undergraduate curriculum. The project aims to advance the assessment of clinical experiential learning in a pilot study by developing a number of workplace based assessment tools and adopting a multi-source and multi-method assessment approach. Two hundred and twelve students (99.5% response rate) and 13 clinical teachers who enrolled in a nursing practicum course participated in the study. Aspects of students’ practicum performances were assessed in a multi-source feedback assessment through collecting multiple perspectives including self-assessment, fellow students and clinical teachers. The proposed assessment approach offers support in how to use assessments as tools to enhance student learning, facilitates the provision of constructive feedback, and promotes the high quality standard of reliability, validity and fairness of experiential learning assessment. Findings from this project also offer evidence based implications for improving clinical experiential learning through a nuanced look at the potential factors influencing the effectiveness of experiential learning.

Principal Investigator

Dr. M.Y. Zhao, Teaching and Learning Evaluation and Measurement Unit Contact

Project level

Programme-level project

Project Completion

September 2017

Deliverables

  1. Assessment instruments:
    • Questionnaire on practicum learning Download
    • Questionnaires on multi-source feedback (designed specific to the nursing practicum context; available upon request)
  2. Recommendations for practicum learning assessment, drawing on findings and experience from this project.Download
  3. Findings were presented at the following conferences:
    • Zhao, Y., Chung, J. O. K., Chan, C. K. Y., & Li, W. H. C. (2016, November). Assessment in workplace: Investigating a multi-source and multi-method approach to enhance student learning in clinical practicum. Presented at the 2016 Frontiers in Medical and Health Sciences Education Conference, Hong Kong SAR. (won the best oral presentation award)
    • Zhao, Y. (2017, March). To like or not to like: Discovering a multi-source assessment approach in clinical experiential learning. Invited poster presented at the conference of “Influencing Teaching and Learning Practice – Achieving the Ripple Effect”, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR.
    • Chung, J. O. K. (2017, December). Discovering a multi-source assessment approach to understand and enhance student learning in clinical practicum. Presented at the Excellent Teachers on Teaching Excellence 2017 Symposium, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR.

Please contact Dr. M.Y. Zhao, Teaching and Learning Evaluation and Measurement Unit (myzhao@hku.hk) if you are interested in obtaining more information on this project.