A Novel Method to Visualize Curricular Integration in Assessment Chirag
1 Bhatia ,
1Donald
Nathan
1 Lau ,
and Robert
and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
Background •
Results
Spirally integrated curricula in medical education have several advantages1, including: 1. Improved student engagement with basic science 2. improved performance on diagnostic exercises 3. Positive student perception of curriculum Curricular integration is difficult to assess Methods to evaluate integration across the curriculum can be used for curriculum development ZSOM performs weekly formative assessment of students through short answer questions (”weekly essays”) Evaluation of curricular integration in student assessment can provide a valuable tool for future curriculum development
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1 Lucito
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Methods •
Weekly essays from year 1 were indexed using the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Text Indexer (MTI)2, which returns relevant Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Overlap between MeSH terms was quantified using the shared “branches” in MeSH tree numbers Circle plots of similarity scores were graphed using the R circlize package3
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Figure 1. Between course assessment similarity by week.
Discussion & Future Directions • • •
Areas of curricular assessment overlap can be represented graphically Weeks in which assessment does not relate closely to other weeks can be identified Assessments in the 2nd preclinical year and clinical years can be similarly assessed using similar methodology
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Figure 2. Within course assessment similarity by week for first year courses: (a) Challenges, Privileges, & Responsibilities (CPR); (b) Biologic Imperative (BI); (c) Fueling The Body (FTB); (d) Homeostasis (HOM).
References 1. 2. 3.
Harden, R. M. (1999). What is a spiral curriculum? Medical Teacher, 21(2), 141–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/01421599979752 NLM Medical Text Indexer (MTI). (n.d.). Retrieved October 07, 2020, from https://ii.nlm.nih.gov/MTI/ Gu, Z. (2020, June 23). Circular Visualization in R. Retrieved October 07, 2020, from https://jokergoo.github.io/circlize_book/book/