This study highlights the necessary conditions for assessing the success of implementation of educational innovations. Reciprocal communication between users and developers is vital. This reflects the approaches recommended in the Ottawa Consensus Statement on research in assessment published in Medical Teacher in March 2011.

Background Narrative feedback, like verbal feedback, is essential to learning. Regardless of form, all feedback should be of high quality. This is becoming even more important as programs incorporate narrative feedback into the constellation of evidence used for summative decision-making. Continuously improving the quality of narrative feedback requires tools for evaluating it, and time to score. A tool is needed that does not require clinical educator expertise so scoring can be delegated to others. Objective To develop an evidence-based tool to evaluate the quality of documented feedback that could be reliably used by clinical educators and non-experts. Methods Following a literature review to identify elements of high-quality feedback, an expert consensus panel developed the scoring tool. Messick's unified concept of construct validity guided the collection of validity evidence throughout development and piloting (2013–2020). Results The Evaluation of Feedback Captured Tool (EFeCT) contains 5 categories considered to be essential elements of high-quality feedback. Preliminary validity evidence supports content, substantive, and consequential validity facets. Generalizability evidence supports that EFeCT scores assigned to feedback samples show consistent interrater reliability scores between raters across 5 sessions, regardless of level of medical education or clinical expertise (Session 1: n=3, ICC=0.94; Session 2: n=6, ICC=0.90; Session 3: n=5, ICC=0.91; Session 4: n=6, ICC=0.89; Session 5: n=6, ICC=0.92). Conclusions There is preliminary validity evidence for the EFeCT as a useful tool for scoring the quality of documented feedback captured on assessment forms. Generalizability evidence indicated comparable EFeCT scores by raters regardless of level of expertise.

Entering into health education leadership with clear intentions can help guide a new career.  While being asked, or simply considering, an educational leadership position, is exciting, it is important to consider your motivation for this position, how this position will mesh with your life and what you want to achieve in this position.  In addition, it is important to look to mentors for advice and consider other avenues of professional development.  Our six tips provide insight into the consideration, negotiation and selection of a health education leadership career that can yield numerous rewards both personally and professionally.

Background: Medical curricula are increasingly providing opportunities to guide reflection for medical students.  However, educational approaches are often limited to formalized classroom initiatives where reflection is prescriptive and measurable. There is paucity of literature that explores the personal ways students may experience authentic reflection outside of curricular time.  The purpose of this study was to understand how social networks might shape dimensions of reflection.  Methods: This study employed a qualitative social network analysis approach with a core sample of seven first year undergraduate medical students who described their relationships with 61 individuals in their networks. Data consisted of participant generated sociograms and individual semi-structured interviews. Results: Many learners struggled to find significant ways to involve their social networks outside of medicine in their new educational experiences.  It appeared that some medical students began in-grouping, becoming more socially exclusive.  Interestingly, participants emphasized how curricular opportunities such as reflective portfolio sessions were useful for capturing a diversity of perspectives. Conclusions: Our study is one of the first to characterize the social networks inside and outside of medical school that students utilize to discuss and reflect on early significant clinical experiences. Recent commentary in the literature has suggested reflection is diverse and personal in nature and our study offers empirical evidence to demonstrate this. Our insights emphasize the importance of moving from an instrumental approach to an authentic socially situated approach if we wish to cultivate reflective lifelong learning.