What is covered on the exams in the Patient course?

• Normally all sessions from a theme in the Patient course are assessed on the corresponding written multiple-choice question (MCQ) examination. Each instructional hour contributes 2 questions to the exam. 5% of exam questions are revisit questions from previous themes. Only the 2-3 preceding themes will be considered for that purpose.
• In the unlikely event that there is an insufficient number of suitable questions available for a specific session, there will be fewer questions on the exam. Regardless of the number of exam questions, learners are expected to know the material of all delivered sessions. The Student Assessment Subcommittee reviews session representation (i.e. exam blueprint) for all exams and takes action as needed if sessions are underrepresented.
• Infrequently, an instructor may choose to not have their session assessed on the MCQ exam based on their teaching approach (e.g. an instructor may choose to not assess a tutorial, which supplements their lecture) and learners will be informed of those sessions in the exam information message.
• If sessions are assessed via an alternate method (e.g. Anatomy labs, Palliative Care sessions), it will be outlined as such in the respective assessment plan.

Who puts the exams together?

• Faculty instructors provide formative and summative questions for their sessions.
• The Phase Assessment Working Group (consisting of the Phase Assessment Lead, the Education Specialist Assessment and the Instructional Designer) review all provided questions and select both the summative exam questions and the formative weekly quiz questions based on learning objective coverage and quality of questions.
• Instructors are provided with the relevant guidelines for writing MCQs and are expected to follow the best practices outlined. The Phase Assessment Working Group will request edits from instructors as needed.

How long does it take to receive exam marks?

• Learners are informed the day of the exam if they scored ≥70% or below. Learners who score below 70% are considered “on the bubble” and may or may not have to reassess pending the final marks and pass score.
• Learners may request a list of the learning objectives of the question(s) they answered incorrectly on the exam by contacting the UGME office.
• After the exam is written, the Phase Assessment Working Group reviews all exam question statistics and challenge cards and identifies any questions that require further review by the faculty instructor. Any crediting decisions are made in consultation with the faculty instructor.
• Once all crediting decisions are made, the exam marks are finalized and used to determine the pass score. Learners are then informed via One45 if they have passed the exam or need to take the reassessment exam. Learners can expect to receive their final exam grades within 4-6 business days.

How is the pass mark for each exam determined?

• Learners achieving a percent-correct score of 70% or more on a summative exam receive a pass.
• If one or more learners obtain a percent-correct score below 70%, the pass mark is determined using the Burr method. The Burr method is linked to the median score of the class meaning it accounts for exam difficulty. If the class overall has lower scores (i.e. lower median) that means the Burr pass score will be lower.
• For more information on how the Burr method works, please refer to the “Introduction to Burr Method and Scaled Scores” video available in the assessment section of the Med5710 - Patient I course shell in Brightspace or contact Katrin at kzipperlen@mun.ca.

Is the reassessment exam the same as the original one?

• About half of the questions on the reassessment exam are new questions. These questions are drawn from the same question bank provided by the instructor that is used for creating the original exam. The contribution for each instructional hour also stays the same so learners can expect to see a new question for each session.

What are challenge cards?

• Learners are able to complete a challenge card for any question on summative written exams.
• Challenge cards should only be used if there is a significant issue with the question:
• the question has more than one correct answer
• the correct answer to the question isn’t listed
• the question includes unclear wording/terminology or wording/terminology not covered in lecture
• Provide the reason for challenging by referencing one of the above points and briefly explain why the reason applies. For example, if a learner believes there is more than one correct answer, indicate which one and why with a few words.
• Challenge cards should not be used to
• provide personal commentary on the question or session (e.g. “this question doesn’t make sense”)
• justify or explain your answer (only the chosen MCQ option counts)
• write down notes or calculations
• Learners can bring any concerns regarding discrepancies in teaching and exam questions forward to the class representative or directly to the Phase Assessment Team by contacting ugmeassessment@mun.ca.