Curriculum Evaluation

Reverend Dr David Taylor

Director of Quality Enhancement
School of Medical Education
University of Liverpool
 And minister of
St. Michael and All Angels, Altcar
 Why me?

 I am responsible for quality enhancement

of the medical school
 I am a visitor for the UK General Medical
Council
 Evaluation of

 Course components
 Course/programme
 Staff
 Two Considerations

 Process
 What
 How well
 Product
 Outcomes
 Knowledge, skills and attitudes
 Fit for purpose
 Process in the UK

 Internal
 All components of the course
 University
 Annual programme monitoring
 Periodic review (every 5 years)
 External – the General Medical Council
 Twice in any 10 year period
 Internal

GMC
University
 Internal

 Process (Quantitative and qualitative)

 Student evaluation of components
 Student evaluation of teaching staff
 Staff evaluation of components
 Product
 Student performance in assessment
 Against definable/defendable standards
 Annual
 Based on a Self-evaluation document under 9
headings
 Introduction
 Progress from last years actions
 Feedback from staff
 Feedback from students
 Feedback from most recent graduates
 Programme information
 External examiners reports and action on them
 Areas of good practice
 Statistical commentary
 Periodic Review
 Every 5 years the course is reviewed by a senior
team
 Aims and outcomes
 Curriculum
 Assessment
 Enhancement
 Learning and teaching
 Student progression
 Learning resources
 External - GMC

 Basic information and committee

structures
 Curricular outcomes, content and structure
 Delivering the curriculum
 Student support guidance and feedback
 Assessing student performance
 Student health and conduct
 Reflecting modern society
 How to make sure the plan comes
together

David Taylor
Liverpool
In the UK there is little flexibility

 The GMC have produced two documents

 Tomorrow’s Doctors
 The New Doctor
 Between them they define what we have
to make sure the students know
 Our handbook gives a generic
syllabus
 Subject knowledge & understanding
 As ‘core’, students will be able to synthesize, appraise, explain,
and apply the relevant information/evidence about:
 the structure and mechanisms of the body in health and
disease, from molecules up to the whole organism related
to:
 normal and abnormal structure and function of the body and its
defence mechanisms; the natural history, symptoms, and signs of
disease; and the biological rationale for therapy and the processes
underlying its complications
 variability in the role of the determinants of health and disease, the
presentation of disease, and the response to therapy
 clinical diagnosis and management of common conditions
 The interrelationships of social, psychological, economic,
political, environmental, cultural factors on health and disease
 Our first step

 Was to decide which 200 cases a student

would need to be familiar with when they
graduated
 We finally agreed on about 208
Core Cases
 Then

 We decided which cases the students

would study through PBL
PBL modules
Scenario
 Then

 The students determine the learning

objectives in their PBL groups – they can
see every groups’ learning objectives
Learning objectives
Which we examine
 Each year

 We review the cases in the light of

the learning objectives the students
are obtaining
 And the examination results

 And change the cases accordingly

 Or even the course!
 As part of a long term project

 We compared the supervisors view of the

competencies of the graduates from our
traditional course and the first cohort of
our new curriculum students

 A series of papers are coming out this

summer (winter…)
 Each year
 We review the content of one of the four subject
themes
 Structure and function
 Individuals, groups and societies
 Population perspective
 Professional and personal development
 A senior committee of subject specialists does
the initial work
 Then the programme team makes the agreed
changes
 Periodic review
 2006 years 1 & 2
 2007 years 3 & 4
 2008 year 5
 2009 whole programme
 university plus external advisors
 General Medical Council
 2010 year without review!
 2011 I will be 55 …