Preparation of Blue Prints for formative Theory Assessment of Undergraduate Medical Students in Community Medicine

Abstract

The written assessment of medical students is very important in view of assessing the various levels of cognitive domains. The validity of any assessment depends upon the appropriate constriction of assessment tool. Framing an ideal theory assessment tool that covers the whole syllabus with proportionate weightage to various content areas according to their importance is big challenge for the paper setter. Considering the vast nature of Community Medicine syllabus constructing a theory assessment tool as per above said ideals is still more difficult. Blueprinting of syllabus i.e. covering all the content areas with allocating proportionate weightage to various content areas can overcome this issue and helps the paper setter to construct a uniform and valid assessment tool. Department of Community medicine has constructed such two blue prints that can be used for either formative or summative type of theory examination.

Suggested format for university assessment in undergraduate competency based curriculum in otorhinolaryngology

“…A The number and type of questions to be asked from a particular topic and the allotted marks is calculated by blueprinting as done with format-1 in the present work. 5 For blueprinting we assign the impact score and frequency score to each content area and calculate the weightage to be given. The impact score (I) is based on the importance of topic.…”

‘Blueprinting in assessment’ – an online learning experience

“…The blue print procedure adopted was similar to a study done in the subject of community medicine (Gujarathi et al, 2015). When Analysis of the papers in different subjects was done, it was found that all subtopics and all domains of a subject were not represented.…”