Competency Testing

What are benefits of competencies/testing?


 * Having competencies can serve as a structured understanding of what is expected, serve as a guide for development, and/or be used for evaluation purposes
 * Competencies tell the students and faculty what the student needs to know – mainly so they are aware of what requirements are needed in order to graduate and find work after school
 * For faculty, competencies are useful because they help guide the teacher in subjects that should be taught
 * Good for the work setting to establish expected behaviours or outcomes for their employees

https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=3205513&Journal_ID=403341&Issue_ID=3205199

https://elearningindustry.com/benefits-of-competency-based-training-healthcare - also a really useful article about the benefits of competency-based training

What are limitations of competencies/testing?


 * Competency testing can tend to have disorganization if not done properly
 * Students often struggle with time management and stress control
 * Inability to work with real patients – every patient is different, sometimes different approaches must be used that can be unfamiliar to students when doing a general competency test

https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-31802004000100004

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1472-6920-9-53

How can we make sure that competency testing is fair and unbiased?


 * Using multiple examiners across different cases improves inter-rater reliability, as well as having more than one examiner ask the student questions makes a more reliable test than one examiner asking all the questions
 * Have a variety of people who have diverse perspectives – this somewhat falls into using multiple examiners during testing


 * Ensure that the questions and skills needed to be performed are clear and concise
 * Try to organize a pre-assessment (like a mock) to make sure students will know what the objectives are and what is expected from them. This way if any of the students were confused by a certain part, it can be edited or adjusted

http://acmd615.pbworks.com/f/Wass.pdf - There’s a hierarchy pyramid of competence in this article that will show a good visual, feel free to include!

https://www.wiley.com/network/featured-content/6-ways-to-ensure-your-assessment-practices-are-fair-and-unbiased