Professional Experience Placement

This is the 8th article  by Fiona Lake and colleagues that is part of a series about how to undertake clinical supervision during professional experience or work integrated learning. The topic of this blog is assessment, appraisal or evaluation. Once again although this series was written more than 5 years ago many of the themes have not changed. This topic forms part of the clinical reasoning cycle now used at UTAS. Assessment and  evaluations form  parts of the cycle. Assessment is part of clinical supervision and essential for patient or client care. Lake and Ryan (2005) discuss these terms and provide working definitions to assist supervisors with assessment, appraisal or evaluation. They state assessment is a judgement about whether performance meets a defined criteria or standard. Assessment in the clinical reasoning cycle is a judgement about a patient or client condition. The cycle can be applied more broadly to include assessment of clinical circumstances. A review of the clinical reasoning cycle or previous blogs on this topic will demonstrate why this topic has the dual function in both clinical or educational contexts.

The authors indicate appraisal is a process that is more formative and provides feedback about progress. It can be used to develop a plan to address learning needs.  Evaluation in the educational context is a judgement about the process of training or learning. Evaluation in the clinical sense is an assessment about how did the intervention or activity work for the patient or client. In both instances the feedback is important to enable reflection and learning from the episode or circumstances.

Lake and Ryan (2005) touch on the conflict that can arise from appraisal and assessment processes. At times there is incongruency due to the need to determine competence (see a previous blog about this subject). The authors indicate that this conflict can be minimised by:

• Ensuring clear outcomes and criteria are determined
• Appropriate timing
• Accurate evidence
• Learner input and
• Constructive regular feedback.

If you have any comments or suggestions about assessment, appraisal or evaluation you are welcome to post them here or join me on Twitter @PEPCommunity.