LEARNING ASSESSMENT AT A SHOULDER SURGICAL SKILLS COURSE

Abstract

Assesment at teaching courses has been restricted to subjective assessment by questionnaire of the quality of teaching sessions and the teachers. This does not give any information on the extent of learning by the participants. Formal skills assessment during a practical course can be complex, time consuming and may distract from the teaching process. The purpose of the study was to quantify learning at a skills course on open shoulder surgery using a knowledge based questionnaire before and after completion of the course.

Method: 22 participants at a two day shoulder surgical workshop completed a knowledge questionnaire before (entry assessment) and immediately after completion (exit assessment) of the course. Four participants were excluded because of incomplete forms. The questionnaire consisted of 10 multiple choice questions which represented the content of the programme. The questionaires were scored and the change in score calculated for each participant and expressed as a percentage of the initial score. An improvement in the score defined a positive learning experience.

Results: There was a positive learning experience for all participating surgeons. The average improvement was 17% {range 4–43%}. The pre course scores ranged from 43 to 92% {average 68.8%}, while the post course scores ranged from 67 to 100% {average 85.5%}. The improvement was dependent on the initial score, trainees with low initial scores registering the maximum percentage recorded increase in knowledge ie 23% (range 5–43%). We did not identify a relationship between grade of surgeon and learning as measured with this assessment.

Conclusions: Simple learning assessments can demonstrate and quantify learning experience at skills courses. The process is not time consuming and can be easily integrated into the structure of a course.