Suggestions for Improving the Assessment of a Learning Management System Used for Clinical Curriculum Development [Response to Letter]

Abstract

Severin Pinilla, 1, 2 Andrea Cantisani, 3 Stefan Klöppel, 1 Werner Strik, 3 Christoph Nissen, 3 Sören Huwendiek 2 1University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; 2Institute for Medical Education, Department for Assessment and Evaluation, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; 3University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, SwitzerlandCorrespondence: Severin Pinilla Email [email protected] Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the observations of Oliveira et al. We fully agree with their recommendations for further study of higher educational outcomes when implementing and developing the use of a learning management system (LMS) in clinical learning environments. As the authors correctly noted, our study focused on an early phase of an educational design research study cycle,1 and we primarily used student evaluations as outcome parameters. Importantly, our conclusion that using an LMS appeared to support student learning was not based on a single Likert item, but also on the improvement of our teaching hospital’s overall ranking. This ranking was calculated based on a 30-item evaluation that included questions on perceptions of learning goal achievements, educational support and learning climate, workplace-based assessments, global evaluation items, and narrative student feedback. It was administered through an external evaluation department at our University; therefore, the details were not included in our data.   View the original paper by Pinella and colleagues   This is in response to the Letter to the Editor