Open AccessUndergraduate Students’ Perception on Assessment Experience in a Malaysian Medical School: Comparison among Gender, Ethnicity and Phase of Study
Author(s) -
Siti Khadijah Adam,
Nur Atiqah Mazlan,
Shivaprakash Selvakumar,
Xian Hui Teh,
Faridah Mohamad Idris
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international medical journal malaysia/iium medical journal malaysia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.139
H-Index - 9
eISSN - 2735-2285
pISSN - 1823-4631
DOI - 10.31436/imjm.v20i3.1647
Subject(s) - syllabus , ethnic group , affect (linguistics) , malay , medicine , medical education , perception , curriculum , test (biology) , psychology , mathematics education , pedagogy , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , communication , neuroscience , sociology , anthropology , biology
It is a well-known fact that assessment influences learning and studybehaviour. Assessment affects what and how students learn, either positive or negativelearning behaviour. This study was aimed to determine students’ perceived assessmentexperience and the comparison among different gender, ethnicity, and phase of the study.MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study. Assessment ExperienceQuestionnaire (AEQ) version 3.3 was distributed to 324 undergraduate medical studentsof Universiti Putra Malaysia. The AEQ score among different gender, ethnicity, and phaseof the study was compared using independent t-test and one-way ANOVA. RESULTS:Female students were found to develop a surface approach to learning, learn new thingsfrom the assessment, and be satisfied more with the teaching compared to males. Chinesestudents tended to put higher effort into learning compared to Malay. Clinical studentsvalued more the feedback received and had clearer goals and expectations for their workthan preclinical students. However, preclinical students tended to put a higher quantity ofeffort, learn wider coverage of syllabus and develop a surface approach of learning thanclinical students. The respondents commented that feedback is lacking and suggestedhaving more feedback sessions with their teachers after assessment. CONCLUSION: Therewere different assessment experiences and learning found among different gender, race,and phase of the study. These may affect their academic performance and are probablydue to the curriculum setting. Understanding student assessment experience and itsimpact helps the faculty to improve the assessment structure for a conducive assessmentenvironment and meaningful learning experience for the students.