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Does general experience affect self‐assessment?
Author(s) -
Rezaiefar Parisa,
Forse Kelly,
Burns Joseph K,
Johnston Sharon,
Muggah Elizabeth,
Kendall Claire,
Archibald Douglas
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the clinical teacher
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.354
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1743-498X
pISSN - 1743-4971
DOI - 10.1111/tct.12797
Subject(s) - competence (human resources) , curriculum , medicine , observational study , objective structured clinical examination , medical education , family medicine , psychology , nursing , pedagogy , social psychology
Summary Background The assessment of clinical competence is critical in medical education. Understanding the effect of general experience on a physician's self‐assessment would help design more effective curricula and evaluations of procedural skills in postgraduate training and continuing professional development (CPD). In this observational study, we assessed the effect of general experience on the correlation between confidence and competence amongst experienced clinicians (ECs) and postgraduate trainees (PGTs) when learning an office‐based procedure in pessary care. Methods We recruited 19 first‐year family medicine residents and 18 family medicine faculty members in two outpatient academic clinics. All participants attended a simulation‐based workshop for a routine gynaecological office procedure. We used a confidence survey as a measure of the participants' self‐assessed competence and an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) to evaluate participants' competence before and after the workshop. The assessment of clinical competence is critical in medical educationResults We found no significant correlation between confidence and competence at baseline for either group (EC, r = 0.25, p = 0.35; PGT, r = 0.15, p = 0.60). After the workshop, we observed a statistically significant correlation between confidence and competence for ECs ( r = 0.60, p = 0.01), but not for PGTs. The change in this correlation was not statistically significant for either group, however. Discussion Our findings suggest that ECs are not any more accurate in the assessment of their competence compared with PGTs. All procedural skills curricula can benefit from OSCE‐format evaluation to better evaluate the improvement in performance of participants.