Accuracy of student self-assessment ability compared to their own performance in a problem-based learning medical program: a correlation study
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M Tousignant1, J E DesMarchais
1University of Ottawa, Faculty of Health Sciences, School of the Science of Rehabilitation, Physiotherapy Program, Ottawa, Canada.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of self-assessment ability of students enrolled in a Problem-based Learning program.
Methods:
Seventy students enrolled in their third year of a four-year program were invited to voluntarily participate in the study. Self-assessment questionnaire was used to measure the students' self-assessment ability on two different occasions: 1) prior to standardised oral examination in predicting their performance, and 2) following the examination estimating their performance. The accuracy of the self-assessment was investigated by the relation between self-assessment and performance of the students.
Results:
Our study showed that self-assessment pre-examination was not accurate compared to performance at the oral examination (r ranging from 0.042 to 0.243). However, accuracy is slightly better when the student self-assesses his performance a posteriori, but the relation stays very low (r ranging from 0.257 to 0.334).
Conclusion:
According to our results, the students in the third year of a self-directed Problem-based Learning medical four year program demonstrated poor accuracy of the self-assessment when compared to their own performance.