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Using Learning Outcome Measures to assess Doctoral Nursing Education
Published on: June 21, 2010
Using qualitative data from a program director's evaluation form as an outcome measurement for medical school
Steven J Durning1, Janice Hanson, William Gilliland
1Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, MD 20814-4712, USA.
Background:
Medical education programs need outcome measurements to promote curriculum improvement and to help meet accreditation standards.
Purpose:
Determine the added value of qualitative comments written by program directors (PDs) in response to a survey concerning first postgraduate year (PGY-1) graduates. We hypothesized that these comments would serve as an additional outcome measurement for our graduates, adding information not readily captured in numeric data.
Methods:
PD evaluation form surveys from 1993-2002. All qualitative comments offered in response to free text questions were coded and compared with numeric ratings.
Results:
A total of 1,247 surveys were included (80% response rate). Comments about specific graduates were coded as positive, negative, or neutral and were categorized into themes. Inter-rater reliability was high (kappa= 0.82). Compared with 4% of graduates who received one or more numeric ratings of less than satisfactory, 7% had one or more qualitative phrases classified as negative.
Conclusions:
Qualitative comments can serve as a useful outcome measurement.
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