Progress testing

Progress tests are longitudinal, feedback oriented educational assessment tools for the evaluation of development and sustainability of cognitive knowledge during a learning process. A progress test is a written knowledge exam (usually involving multiple choice questions) that is usually administered to all students in the "A" program at the same time and at regular intervals (usually twice to four times yearly) throughout the entire academic program. The test samples the complete knowledge domain expected of new graduates upon completion of their courses, regardless of the year level of the student). The differences between students’ knowledge levels show in the test scores; the further a student has progressed in the curriculum the higher the scores. As a result, these resultant scores provide a longitudinal, repeated measures, curriculum-independent assessment of the objectives (in knowledge) of the entire programme.

Since its inception in the late 1970s at both Maastricht University and the University of Missouri–Kansas City independently, the progress test of applied knowledge has been increasingly used in medical and health sciences programs across the globe. They are well established and increasingly used in medical education in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. They are used formatively and summatively.

The progress test is currently used by national progress test consortia in the United Kingdom, Italy, The Netherlands, in Germany (including Austria), and in individual schools in Africa, Saudi Arabia, South East Asia, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, UK, and the USA. The National Board of Medical Examiners in the USA also provides progress testing in various countries The feasibility of an international approach to progress testing has been recently acknowledged and was first demonstrated by Albano et al. in 1996, who compared test scores across German, Dutch and Italian medical schools. An international consortium has been established in Canada involving faculties in Ireland, Australia, Canada, Portugal and the West Indies.

The progress test serves several important functions in academic programs. Considerable empirical evidence from medical schools in the Netherlands, Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland, as well postgraduate medical studies and schools in dentistry and psychology have shown that the longitudinal feature of the progress test provides a unique and demonstrable measurement of the growth and effectiveness of students’ knowledge acquisition throughout their course of study .

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