Abstract
Background Simulation-based assessment is scarcely used for undergraduate medical students. We created a simulation-based assessment to validate medical students’ technical and psychometrics’ skills, during their emergency medicine and pediatric curriculum. The aim of our study was to collect medical students’ perception on this novel assessment.Methods This is a qualitative study that includes 9 focus groups among the 215 students who participated in either a pediatric or an emergency medicine simulation-based-course. These sessions ended by an assessment on a manikin. Among the 40 students who were randomly selected to participate in the focus groups, 30 agreed to participate. Data were analyzed using grounded theory and, data were coded the by two independent investigators.Results Seven major and two minor themes emerged from the focus groups. The importance of being certified by simulation to be more self-confident in hospital clerkships, the perception of simulation-based assessment as a high quality assessment, the contribution of the simulation-based assessment to change students’ practices and enhance their engagement in their curriculum and a disappointment because simulation-based assessment didn’t help student for the faculty high stakes assessments. Some students also found that simulation-based assessment was a stressful and unfair exercise. The last discussion was about practical issues of the assessment such as this normative way, and about the importance of the feedback.Conclusion The students reported positive aspects of the simulation-based assessment method such as helpful for their hospital clerkship, change of their practices and way of learning. However they also reported that it might be a biased and a stressful assessment method.
Role modelling of clinical tutors: a focus group study among medical students
