FAQS

Feedback is not about being nice, or overly harsh. Feedback is about learning. If feedback provided is not a learning opportunity, it will not be useful. Every learner and situation is different. No two conversations will be the same and therefore can be uncomfortable and hard to plan for. When providing feedback to a learner, it is helpful to ensure you:

Have an agenda of points to talk through. Don’t overdo it. In workplace based assessment it is better to have multiple short occasions for feedback rather than one long one. It is also better to only have a couple of feedback messages at any one time rather than a long list.

Ask the learner for their talking points. This creates a shared agenda and affirms the learner/supervisor partnership needed for learning. The learner can be asked for their points prior to the discussion, or at the beginning of the discussion if it is more ad-hoc.

Discuss the points that both you and the learner want to get across. Use communication strategies such as summarising, paraphrasing, mirroring, emotional reflections, meta communication – provide reflections of learner’s strengths as well as areas for improvement, and non verbal communication strategies such as posture and facial expressions.

Agree on outcomes. Make concrete plans for learning or improvement activities.

Make arrangement for a follow up.

Please see our resources on providing feedback:

The   AMC   held   a    workshop   in   2017   on   the   topic   of   programmatic assessment,   with   Professors   Cees   Van   Der   Vleuten   and   Lambert   Schuwirth   as presenters. The aim of the workshop were to give participants an opportunity to:

• Gain an   understanding   of   the   fundamentals   of   Programmatic  Assessment. Review   common   problems  and   innovations   in   assessment   across  the  medical continuum   and   at   the   AMC   to   understand   the   alignment   with   programmatic assessment concepts and AMC standards.
• Share good   ideas   and   ask   burning   questions   about   assessment   from   experts and peers.
• Gain practical   strategies   for   how   to   design   and   implement   a   programmatic approach to assessment Share information about a range of pilots of National and International innovations in assessment across the medical continuum and at the AMC relating to programmatic assessment
• Reflect on how to further improve assessment practices in their training program and future directions for review of AMC standards on Assessment

Resources generated from the Programmatic Assessment Workshop include the workshop report and case studies about implementing programmatic assessment across the continuum of medical education.  These resources can be found here:

AMC Programmatic Assessment Workshop 2017 – Workshop Report

Implementing Programmatic Assessment – Case Studies

To effectively embed change which will stick, it is important to think through how to introduce the change and how to approach it from a multi-dimensional perspective including consideration of political, cultural, structural and people frames.

Current literature regarding innovation for assessment in medical education focusses on the quality of educational product and is theoretically grounded in psychometrics.

Increasingly, it is becoming evident that whilst the quality of the innovation in medical education is vital, quality alone does not ensure success.  This is because the context and times in which we find ourselves are ones of complex change and disruption.

To maximise the success of innovation and sustainability of educational programs, we need to explore program design and implementation in terms of complexity and adaptive systems.

Read more here: Embedding change AMC paper June 2021