Self-evaluation and peer-feedback of medical students' communication skills using a web-based video annotation system. Exploring content and specificity.

Self-evaluation and peer-feedback are important strategies within the reflective practice paradigm for the development and maintenance of professional competencies like medical communication. Characteristics of the self-evaluation and peer-feedback annotations of medical students' video recorded communication skills were analyzed. Twenty-five year 4 medical students recorded history-taking consultations with a simulated patient, uploaded the video to a web-based platform, marked and annotated positive and negative events. Peers reviewed the video and self-evaluations and provided feedback. Analyzed were the number of marked positive and negative annotations and the amount of text entered. Topics and specificity of the annotations were coded and analyzed qualitatively. Students annotated on average more negative than positive events. Additional peer-feedback was more often positive. Topics most often related to structuring the consultation. Students were most critical about their biomedical topics. Negative annotations were more specific than positive annotations. Self-evaluations were more specific than peer-feedback and both show a significant correlation. Four response patterns were detected that negatively bias specificity assessment ratings. Teaching students to be more specific in their self-evaluations may be effective for receiving more specific peer-feedback. Videofragmentrating is a convenient tool to implement reflective practice activities like self-evaluation and peer-feedback to the classroom in the teaching of clinical skills.

Hulsman RL ，van der Vloodt J 《-》

Reflective teaching of medical communication skills with DiViDU: assessing the level of student reflection on recorded consultations with simulated patients.

Hulsman RL ，Harmsen AB ，Fabriek M 《PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING》

First-year medical students' assessment of their own communication skills: a video-based, open-ended approach.

Zick A ，Granieri M ，Makoul G 《PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING》

Peer-assessment of medical communication skills: the impact of students' personality, academic and social reputation on behavioural assessment.

Peer-assessment of communication skills may contribute to mastery of assessment criteria. When students develop the capacity to judge their peers' performance, they might improve their capacity to examine their own clinical performance. In this study peer-assessment ratings are compared to teacher-assessment ratings. The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of personality and social reputation as source of bias in assessment of communication skills. Second year students were trained and assessed history taking communication skills. Peers rated the students' personality and academic and social reputation. Peer-assessment ratings were significantly correlated with teacher-ratings in a summative assessment of medical communication. Peers did not provide negative ratings on final scales but did provide negative ratings on subcategories. Peer- and teacher-assessments were both related to the students' personality and academic reputation. Peer-assessment cannot replace teacher-assessment if the assessment should result in high-stake decisions about students. Our data do not confirm the hypothesis that peers are overly biased by personality and reputation characteristics in peer-assessment of performance. Early introduction of peer-assessment in medical education would facilitate early acceptance of this mode of evaluation and would promote early on the habit of critical evaluation of professional clinical performance and acceptance of being evaluated critically by peers.

Hulsman RL ，Peters JF ，Fabriek M 《-》

Anxiety and self-awareness in video feedback.

Doctor-patient communication is an integral part of good medical practice and medical education throughout the UK. Innovative methods of clinical communication training make use of technology, including video feedback, within undergraduate learning; however, medical students may encounter barriers such as social anxiety and self-awareness that could prevent them from fully benefiting from training sessions. This study investigated the extent to which medical student anxiety and self-awareness impacted on their learning experience in video feedback workshops. Written reflections on the experience of using video feedback were gathered from third-year medical students (n = 47). Reflections were thematically analysed to identify key themes relating to anxiety and self-awareness perceptions. Students reported a high level of anxiety at the prospect of being video-recorded while interacting with a simulated patient. Levels of public self-awareness were high and students were concerned at being judged as inadequate by their peers. The peer feedback sessions were used to readjust students' perceptions of their own abilities by comparing their own performance with that of their peers. Clinical communication trainers should be aware of the anxiety and high public self-awareness that students may experience prior to video feedback sessions, and should aim to reduce this by informing students as much as possible about the process and by shifting their focus away from the peer appraisal of performance. Students appear to find the opportunity to improve the accuracy of their self-perception of their own skills as the main benefit of clinical communication video feedback training, and this area could be investigated further to determine how to derive maximum benefit.

Lindon-Morris E ，Laidlaw A 《-》