I’m dissecting an assessment type that is commonly used by myself and my colleagues. We are educators of the Veterinary Nursing Program (VNP) at Michigan State University. Veterinary nurses provide animal care to animals, just as registered nurses do to humans. Veterinary nurses perform diagnostic tests, prepare and assist in surgeries, provide care for hospitalized and post-operative patients, induce and monitor patients under anesthesia, and more. Individuals in this profession must have the ability to execute many technical skills to effectively perform their duties and tasks. This profession is very hands-on and requires confidence and mastery of such skills.
As educators, it is our duty to ensure our students have this confidence and ability to perform these tasks, so we’ve established assessments centered around these foundational skills. Our students complete live animal laboratories in the VNP, including surgical and dental laboratories. During these labs, students rotate between the roles of an anesthetist, surgery assistant, and dental hygienist. The same laboratory evaluation forms are used in both labs to evaluate students on their lab preparedness, knowledge, technical skills and ability, patient care, safety, professionalism, communication skills, and teamwork. While slightly modified to cater to individual lab roles, these categories are consistent. To further define each category, expectations and duties are listed. As an example, to fulfill one’s technical ability, they must “use proper, basic, nursing care skills sets.”
Laboratory evaluation forms are posted online for students to view prior to lab sessions so they know what’s expected of them and how they will be graded. Each student receives one completed evaluation form after the conclusion of each lab session. Throughout each lab session instructors write comments to students that could include observations, suggestions, areas for improvement, and accomplishments and successes. Based on the student’s overall performance and instructor comments, numbers are awarded, ranging from 0-10 for each category (where 10 is outstanding and 0 is unacceptable), giving the student a score up to 90.
Currently, I’m creating an assessment checklist, where important components to an assessment are listed. The checklist will be useful when creating or improving assessments. Current assessment considerations include the need to focus on key concepts and that the assessment should be formative in some way. Using this checklist to critically analyze the laboratory evaluation form, I do believe the assessment focuses on broad, key concepts. Essential skills like communication, organization, and technical abilities are evaluated. Students have completed many courses in the VNP and practiced many technical skills before entering into these laboratories. These categories allow instructors to focus less on specifics, such as how long it takes students to perform their patient physical exams or how many catheters and gauze squares they grab. Rather, the focus is on the students’ ability to complete these tasks thoroughly and efficiently, both independently and as a team. I also consider the evaluation form to be a formative assessment. Students can use the evaluation form to review what they’ve learned, how they are performing, and where they can improve before their next lab session.
However, I think the evaluation form can be improved to align more with these assessment suggestions, and enhance students’ overall learning. While the lab evaluation provides nine broad categories and criteria within each, adding a handful of specific tasks will provide clearer expectations. As an instructor, this will help guide what numerical score students earn, and allow students to see what factors attributed to such a grade. Instructor feedback certainly puts focus on the students’ individual strengths and weaknesses, which helps instructors highlight where attention should be directed in future labs. But better analysis of overall student performance to improve instruction should be utilized in the future. To do so, I could move the evaluation form to an online format, using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for example, where students would receive the same information in one location. Students can compare comments and performance scores from each lab session using this online format. This will also allow me to better visualize where stronger instruction should take place prior to lab sessions. Additionally, student feedback on lab sessions, expectations, set-up, and personal performance could be added. This valuable feedback could be provided at the conclusion of each lab.
I’m finding my assessment checklist quite beneficial. I look forward to speaking with my colleagues about how we could make modifications for better assessment of overall teaching and learning. Other instructors use different competency-type check-off assessments, so similar thoughts and modifications could be used for these as well.
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