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Changing the culture of assessment: the dominance of the summative assessment paradigm

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Education, April 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (91st percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (93rd percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
twitter
31 X users
peer_reviews
1 peer review site

Readers on

mendeley
237 Mendeley
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Title
Changing the culture of assessment: the dominance of the summative assessment paradigm
Published in
BMC Medical Education, April 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12909-017-0912-5
Pubmed ID
Authors

Christopher J. Harrison, Karen D. Könings, Lambert W. T. Schuwirth, Valerie Wass, Cees P. M. van der Vleuten

Abstract

Despite growing evidence of the benefits of including assessment for learning strategies within programmes of assessment, practical implementation of these approaches is often problematical. Organisational culture change is often hindered by personal and collective beliefs which encourage adherence to the existing organisational paradigm. We aimed to explore how these beliefs influenced proposals to redesign a summative assessment culture in order to improve students' use of assessment-related feedback. Using the principles of participatory design, a mixed group comprising medical students, clinical teachers and senior faculty members was challenged to develop radical solutions to improve the use of post-assessment feedback. Follow-up interviews were conducted with individual members of the group to explore their personal beliefs about the proposed redesign. Data were analysed using a socio-cultural lens. Proposed changes were dominated by a shared belief in the primacy of the summative assessment paradigm, which prevented radical redesign solutions from being accepted by group members. Participants' prior assessment experiences strongly influenced proposals for change. As participants had largely only experienced a summative assessment culture, they found it difficult to conceptualise radical change in the assessment culture. Although all group members participated, students were less successful at persuading the group to adopt their ideas. Faculty members and clinical teachers often used indirect techniques to close down discussions. The strength of individual beliefs became more apparent in the follow-up interviews. Naïve epistemologies and prior personal experiences were influential in the assessment redesign but were usually not expressed explicitly in a group setting, perhaps because of cultural conventions of politeness. In order to successfully implement a change in assessment culture, firmly-held intuitive beliefs about summative assessment will need to be clearly understood as a first step.

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X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 31 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 237 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 <1%
Unknown 236 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 31 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 22 9%
Lecturer 18 8%
Professor > Associate Professor 16 7%
Researcher 14 6%
Other 62 26%
Unknown 74 31%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 61 26%
Social Sciences 38 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 10 4%
Arts and Humanities 7 3%
Business, Management and Accounting 6 3%
Other 35 15%
Unknown 80 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 28. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 March 2023.
All research outputs
#1,485,299
of 26,420,118 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Education
#151
of 4,214 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#27,168
of 328,631 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Education
#3
of 47 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,420,118 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,214 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 328,631 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 47 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.