Because I’m still in school, I have a lot of opinions on clinical evaluations. Our first semester of school, it seemed we had a competency evaluation every week. We would then get these forms back, and see what we missed points on, but I know there were times that I thought “cool, I missed points on this but have no idea what it means so I don’t know how to fix it.” For this reason, I think it is very important for students to be evaluated more than once. I also think it is MORE important that the instructor explain to the student after the competency to how to fix their mistakes. That gives them the opportunity to make corrections for the next competency. Now getting a 24/26 on a competency seems good and it is passing, but think of a competency on the explorer. Those two missed points could be on not sinking far enough into the col (-1 point) and not exploring the line angle (-1 point). If the student doesn’t know how to fix this, they will keep missing these points on competency exams but still passing. When they have multiple evaluations, one of the evaluators might say the right thing to fix this. Every evaluation is a shot to improve, so it benefits the student to have these opportunities.
I don’t think students should know they are being evaluated. Not only does it provoke nervous, but it makes the student concentrate more on their technical skills. I know I paid more attention to doing things the way I was taught when I was being evaluated. In the beginning of hygiene school, you have not made your own modifications yet so all you have is exactly the way you were taught. At that point, nerves are the reason students should not know. As a senior in my last semester, I have changed the way I do things, such as where I fulcrum when I probe the upper right. When I was doing my competency, I remembered the way we were taught, and focused on fulcruming on my finger while they were watching. It felt awkward because I had made this change a long time ago and had gotten used to my way. If I didn’t know I was being evaluated, I would have done it the way I had changed to and missed that point. Not that missing a point is a positive thing, but if the instructor had seen me do it my way, and I was missing a probe depth, she could have suggested an adjustment. I just think it is best not to know so your true skills are reflected.
Nervous students are going to be nervous, especially in the beginning of hygiene school. Instructors can try to calm these nerves just by being friendly and approachable. A simple smile can positive attitude can make a student smile and help them relax. I know I was always more confident in myself when I had an instructor that I knew was helpful and easy to work with. Also, instructors should be able to ask students if they have any questions before they start. This gives the student a chance to clarify anything confusing, and I know it helped me relax.
I liked what you said about the instructors grading your true skills. Not knowing when your being evaluated, so that they can see your true techniques and be able to help you make adjustments if needed or to just let you know that what your doing works. I agree, good point!
Great point about instructors needing to provide more feedback to students on their evaluations on how to improve. I felt the same when I got points off during my first semester; I got some points off but didn’t know how to fix it either. Feedback to the students should be equally as important as testing their skills. Students for sure try harder when they know they are being graded, and that’s not a bad thing. A friendly, positive, approachable instructor helps termendously in calming a student’s nerves and allowing questions before the evaluation.
I like the points you made about re-doing competencies to get better at them and learning new things. Also being able to clarify a concept before you begin your competency is extremely helpful! That would suck not knowing why you got points taken off, our instructors always left comments on our competencies…..sometimes you didn’t want to read them hahaha
I like your statement about needing feedback on the competencies. I know some of the evaluations I received had the grade with a short comment, but had no clue what it meant. Most of the time we didn’t get the evaluations back until the next clinic and that particular instructor wasn’t there, so I couldn’t ask her about it until the next week. By then I was concerned with my other patients. So I think IMMEDIATE feedback is necessary when grading competencies.
Lauren you bring up a really important issue in competency evaluations and that is that if a student does not perform an essential skill correctly but can still “pass” a competency. This can make the competency not valid if you are trying to ensure that students are competent. You have to be careful how you weight items on the competency in order to make sure that if an essential skill is not done that the student would not “pass”.
I am seconding Jadrian about the need for feedback on competencies. If everything is kept a secret until a few days later, how can we remember what our angulation looked like on the linguals? Immediate feedback is good because the student’s actions are still fresh in their minds. The only drawback that I can think of is if the students are completing multiple competencies that clinic session, like we’ve done at OSU. If they were to perform poorly on one, it might negatively affect their performance on the following competencies.
Feels good to know that I am not the only person who was bothered by not getting immediate feedback on a competency during pre-clinic. However, during senior year, I felt like the instructors did a much better job of telling you what you needed to improve on while it is still fresh in your mind.