Using student feedback to construct an assessment rubric for a concept map in physiology

Area of Science:

• Dental Education
• Medical Education
• Health Professions Education

Background:

• Developing quality assessment rubrics for integrated, group-centered, applied learning tasks presents challenges.
• Collaborative learning activities require clear assessment criteria to align with educational goals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate student and faculty perceptions of assessment criteria for a dentistry concept mapping task.
• To develop a more accessible assessment rubric by integrating learner and instructor perspectives.

Main Methods:

• Second-year dentistry students in groups created concept maps from simulated patient medical histories.
• Student and faculty perceptions of learning goals and assessment criteria were gathered and compared.
• An assessment rubric was developed using shared language from both groups.

Main Results:

• Differences were identified between student and faculty understandings of the concept mapping task's learning goals.
• The developed rubric incorporated language from both students and faculty to clarify expectations.
• The new rubric aims to enhance learner accessibility and understanding.

Conclusions:

• Collaborative development of assessment rubrics, incorporating learner input, can improve clarity and accessibility in health professions education.
• Explicitly defining and aligning assessment criteria with learning goals is crucial for effective applied learning tasks.
• Further implementation and evaluation of the rubric are planned.