Rethinking Workplace-Based Assessment: The Costly Illusion of Authenticity

The current practice of workplace-based assessment (WBA) in many health professions education contexts does not live up to the expectations regarding both WBA's formative (for learning) and summative (for decision-making) potential. In this Scholarly Perspective, the authors argue that the ambition to observe and assess so-called authentic behavior of trainees plays a role in this. According to the literature, for assessments in the workplace to be valid, direct observation of authentic behavior of trainees performing authentic clinical work is key. Guidelines, therefore, advise supervisors to observe their trainees silently from a distance, while avoiding direct eye contact with the patient. If these guidelines are followed, trainee-patient-supervisor situations that could be used for teaching in dialogue, with bidirectional observations, must be transformed into distanced, silent, unidirectional assessments. Research outcomes, however, suggest that direct observation and assessment of true authentic behavior of trainees in true authentic clinical work is an illusion; the presence of an observing supervisor, however distanced, changes the situation and, with that, the conduct of the trainee. Additionally, this illusion is costly because distancing the supervisor from the trainee comes at the expense of teaching and learning in dialogue. Although assessments in the workplace may serve summative purposes, they do not fit well with formative goals of health professions education. Therefore, WBA's current central position in health professions education, which is based on both its summative and formative promises, should be questioned. More specifically, the prominent role of assessment when supervisors are present while their trainee works with a patient should be reconsidered. The authors propose to use these trainee-patient-supervisor situations predominantly for teaching and learning, with bidirectional direct observation and dialogue, and then determine the needs for and purposes of assessment.