MD Program Assessment

Check for Understanding

Check-for-understanding (CFU) assessments are designed to be short and focused, mainly utilizing multiple choice questions.The primary goal of these formative assessments is to ensure that students grasp key concepts and skills in real-time, providing feedback and helping to guide academic coaching.

Mastery Assessments

Mastery assessments (MA) are conducted at key times during curricular units and are integrative assessments that require students to synthesize and apply their knowledge.

Reflections

In specific courses including Person-centred Care, Personal and Professional Development, and Indigenous Communities and Health, students will be asked to reflect on certain experiences. Guided reflections must be completed in order to progress within the course.

Projects

In specific courses including Community and Global Health and Health System Sciences, projects will help students develop important skills in domains such as health advocacy, collaboration and communication. Completion of the project at the expected level of competence is required for progression in the courses.

Progress Tests 

Progress tests assess cumulative knowledge and readiness for high-stakes licensing exams, such as the Medical Council of Canada’s Qualifying Exam, and provide students and clinical faculty with benchmarks for academic and professional progress.

Performance-Based Assessment 

Performance-based assessments such as Workplace-based Assessments (WBAs), Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), and Simulations are crucial for assessing practical skills in clinical reasoning and decision-making. In these assessments, students demonstrate their abilities in real or simulated clinical settings, under the observation of a preceptor. This hands-on approach allows for the assessment of important competencies, such as communication skills, approach to generating a differential diagnosis, and therapeutic planning.

Observation

MD students are also assessed on the basis of their competence in skills such as communication, collaboration, leadership, professionalism and critical reasoning. Assessments in these domains are generally done through observation of those competencies in real world situations both pre-clerkship and during clerkship. The data for these assessments are captured from different sources such as peers, preceptors, community stakeholders, supervisors etc.

Feedback on Performance

Students will receive continuous and timely formative feedback on their assessments, including through their online student portfolio and dashboard on the Learning Assessment and Management System (LAMS). Students and academic coaches will routinely receive reports summarizing student progress on various assessments, which will help stimulate coaching conversations to foster their success.