Strides in Development of Medical Education (May 2015)
The Use of Cumulative Disciplinary Score in an Integrated Curriculum to Prevent Deliberate Omission of Course Content
Abstract
Background & Objective: Student assessment is one of the most challenging issues of an integrated curriculum While calculating an overall score is in line with the goals of integrated curriculum it poses the risk that some students will deliberately leave out the content of some disciplines based on the fact that they have lower credits in each block exam In the present study we describe the experience of Tehran University of Medical Sciences Iran where an integrated medical curriculum has been launched since September 2011 as part of curriculum reform initiative Methods: In the first academic year students passed 4 blocks: Molecule and Cell Tissue Development and Function Cardiovascular Function Blood circulation and BloodRespiratory Function Each block included anatomy histology physiology and embryology The overall block score was reported at the end of each block In addition a cumulative disciplinary score was calculated at the end of the academic year through the summation of the weighted subscores of each discipline in each block Results: At the end of the year the number of students who had failed in histology anatomy embryology and physiology were 15 17 44 and 3 respectively They were required to take a disciplinary examination before the beginning of the next academic year Conclusion: A comparison of the number of students who failed disciplines with low credits (eg histology) with those who failed disciplines with high credits (eg physiology) suggests that the former had systematically been ignored by some students The calculation of a cumulative disciplinary score may reduce the deliberate omission of course content in integrated blocks
