Assessing students’ communication skills: validation of a global rating

Abstract

Communication skills training is an accepted part of undergraduate medical programs nowadays. In addition to learning experiences its importance should be emphasised by performance-based assessment. As detailed checklists have been shown to be not well suited for the assessment of communication skills for different reasons, this study aimed to validate a global rating scale. A Canadian instrument was translated to German and adapted to assess students' communication skills during an end-of-semester-OSCE. Subjects were second and third year medical students at the reformed track of the Charité-Universitaetsmedizin Berlin. Different groups of raters were trained to assess students' communication skills using the global rating scale. Validity testing included concurrent validity and construct validity: Judgements of different groups of raters were compared to expert ratings as a defined gold standard. Furthermore, the amount of agreement between scores obtained with this global rating scale and a different instrument for assessing communication skills was determined. Results show that communication skills can be validly assessed by trained non-expert raters as well as standardised patients using this instrument.

An Investigation of the Standardised Patient Interview Rating Scale (SPIRS) for the Assessment of Speech Pathology Students in a Simulation Clinic

“…Studies investigating the use of global judgements (Boursicot and Roberts 2006, Cunnington, Neville, and Norman 1997, Scheffer et al 2008 have found that these may suit clinicians' understanding of clinical competency more than a list of items which attempt to separate discrete components of the competency. However, whilst these may be a time-efficient and appropriate method to assess communication and other professional skills, they may not provide the required level of detail to assist students in improving their performance (Scheffer et al 2008). The inclusion of individual items, in addition to a global item, was deemed, therefore, to be a suitable choice.…”

“…An additional area of investigation is the potential for the SPIRS to be used by SPs, in their rating of students. As it has been noted that SPs rate students more leniently than experts (Scheffer et al 2008), further attention to content and validation would be required.…”

Assessment of Pharmacy Students' Communication Competence Using the Roter Interaction Analysis System During Objective Structured Clinical Examinations

“…24 To assess communication competency in the context of an OSCE, the global rating scale appears to be more appropriate than detailed checklists. 24 However, the global rating scale may be more subjective and the score for each element of a student's performance could be affected by the rater's personal impression. The rater's experience and the level of evaluation in the global rating evaluation system also must be considered.…”

Feasibility of an Internet-Based Global Ranking Instrument

“…1,2 Widely accepted and easy to use, GRIs assess interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and aspects of patient and systems-based care. [3][4][5][6] GRIs may be relevant in dynamic domains like anesthesiology, where standardized educational tools such as written and oral exams or objective, structured, clinical examinations may not directly measure important aspects of clinician performance. 7,8 For example, consider an anesthesiology resident faced with unexpected, massive hemorrhage in the operating room (OR).…”