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The Advanced Dundee Endoscopic Psychomotor Tester (ADEPT) objectifying subjective psychomotor test performance
M P Schijven1, J Jakimowicz, C Schot
1Department of Surgery, Catharina Hospital Eindhoven, Michelangelolaan 2, P.O. Box 1350, 5602 ZA Eindhoven, The Netherlands. mschijv@zonnet.nl
Surgical Endoscopy
|August 7, 2002
Summary
Surgeons underestimate their performance on the Advanced Dundee Psychomotor Tester (ADEPT), an objective tool for measuring laparoscopic skills. The ADEPT system reflects innate psychomotor ability but surgeons remain ambivalent about its validity.
Area of Science:
- Surgical Education
- Medical Simulation
- Psychomotor Assessment
Background:
- The Advanced Dundee Psychomotor Tester (ADEPT) was developed as an objective scoring system for endoscopic task performance.
- This study aimed to evaluate ADEPT's value in assessing laparoscopic skills and its correlation with innate psychomotor ability.
- Key research questions addressed surgeons' self-estimation of performance and their perception of ADEPT's validity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To establish the value of the Advanced Dundee Psychomotor Tester (ADEPT) as an objective scoring system for endoscopic task performance.
- To determine if surgeons are accurate estimators of their own performance on ADEPT.
- To assess surgeons' perception of ADEPT's validity in measuring laparoscopic skills and its reflection of innate psychomotor ability.
Main Methods:
- Forty-five surgeons completed two standardized task runs on the ADEPT system.
- A post-test visual analog scale (VAS) questionnaire assessed attitudes toward skills testing and ADEPT's validity and performance.
- Objective ADEPT scores were compared with surgeons' subjective self-assessments and questionnaire responses.
Main Results:
- Surgeons underestimated their performance on ADEPT (mean subjective score 6.1 vs. objective score 6.6).
- Self-reported performance on ADEPT was found to be unreliable due to overlapping confidence intervals.
- Surgeons showed ambivalence regarding ADEPT's validity, with scores distributed widely across the scale (mean 5.8).
- ADEPT performance demonstrated high concordance between test and true runs, indicating reflection of innate psychomotor ability (72.7% within one distance).
Conclusions:
- Surgeons are unable to accurately predict their performance on standardized ADEPT tasks.
- Performance on ADEPT reflects innate psychomotor ability and improvement across testing runs.
- Surgeons' assessment of ADEPT's validity is ambivalent, regardless of their individual performance levels.