Exploring the perception of medical students and lecturers on the consequential validity of medical long case

The long case is a historical clinical assessment method for medical students but is being phased out due to low reliability arising from the difficulty in standardization of the assessment. However, it's an educationally valuable assessment, whose consequential validity has got little attention in the literature.

The aim of the study was to explore the consequential validity of the long case as perceived by medical students and lecturers.

The study followed an interpretivist approach utilizing qualitative methods of data collection. Data was collected through Focus Group Discussions with medical students (n = 6) as well as Key Informant Interviews with lecturers (n = 5). The qualitative data was analyzed by deductive qualitative analysis utilizing Cook and Lineberry framework for evaluating the educational impact of an assessment.

The study found that the long case is an educationally valuable assessment method because it is authentic and provides a holistic approach to clinical assessment. The assessment promotes professional identity development as students assume the role of a physician. Though reliability was reported as the main weakness of the long case, participants were strongly in favor of the long case especially for formative assessment. It was also noted that awarding marks in the formative assessment serves as a major incentive for students to do more long cases. Though, the study reported patients being uncooperative to students sometimes, it lacked the voices of the patients yet they are a major player during the long case assessment.

The long case is an educationally valuable assessment for formative evaluation of medical students and offers great potential for professional development.