Faculty's perspective on skill assessment in undergraduate medical education: Qualitative online forum study

BACKGROUND: India is at the nascent stage of competency-based medical education. Faculties trained in medical education are the main driving force for change. The present study explores the perception of faculties about the current practices and problems in medical/dental/nursing undergraduate assessment, barriers to adoption of best practices, and solutions for addressing them. METHODOLOGY: A qualitative study was designed and data collected through an asynchronous online discussion forum. A group of 31 health professionals (FAIMER fellows selected on the basis of active participation in department of medical education of respective colleges) participated in the forum. An open-ended topic guide with prompts was designed. The forum was initiated by release of discussion topics (threads) at the start of the month and remained in forum throughout the month. Researchers moderated and recorded day-to-day events. All online forum data were coded line by line and analyzed using conventional content analysis. RESULTS: Four categories generated were: (1) Low utility of current skill assessment system due to low validity and reliability; (2) Barrier in adopting newer assessment tool due to the absence of felt need of faculties and students, mistaken beliefs, and limited resources; (3) Poor implementation of newer assessment tools such as formatives and objective structured clinical examination with no blueprinting; and (4) Solutions proposed were regular formative assessment, criterion-based examination, quality-assured faculty development programs, and administrative support. CONCLUSIONS: Barriers in adopting newer assessment tools are related to the faculty's perception and resource constraint. This can be addressed by quality-assured faculty development programs and effective implementation of competency-based education.