Faculty perceptions of formative assessment and implementation practices in pre-clinical medical education: A Q method study

Abstract

This study describes faculty perceptions of formative assessment and the influence their perceptions have on implementation practices. Assessment is often misunderstood and too often becomes an afterthought in the teaching process. Measuring curricular success by overall student outcomes means instructional and assessment methods have a relationship with summative outcomes. Faculty perception of the use or importance of formative assessment influences their use of formative assessment within the instructional process. A review of the literature in formative assessment, educational technology, and implementation practices is presented. The review as well as the researcher's personal experience as an instructional designer with which the participants work was used to develop a set of 36 statements that were sorted by 20 faculty using Q methodology protocol. A four-factor solution was the result of an analysis using PQMethod software. Themes for the resulting factors were interpreted using a demographic questionnaire, survey and interview data. The four factors were interpreted as Confident Users, who felt knowledgeable about formative assessment and were confident in their use; Unfamiliar Supporters, who felt very uninformed about formative assessments, but assumed they were useful; Purposeful User, who felt confident and purposeful about understanding and implementing formative assessment; and Cautious Users, who felt knowledgeable about formative assessments, but have had prior experiences that influence their use. Conclusions include: the majority of the faculty perceive formative assessment as useful to the learning process, about half of the faculty care to use educational technology to implement formative assessments, several faculty feel that planning and implementing formative assessments place additional time and effort constraints on their teaching processes, and most of the faculty who use formative assessments are not confident in how to use the feedback to improve teaching methods and learning outcomes. Future research should study how faculty use educational technology to implement formative assessments and indicate why its implementation improved student outcomes. Future research should also study how faculty perceive formative assessments' role in increasing student engagement. The findings of this study identified the need for well-developed and well-implemented faculty development programs in order to support better understanding and implementation practices of formative assessment.