Assessment preferences of nursing and medical students: A correlational research

Abstract

Aim: The study aims to determine nursing and medical students' preferences for assessment in education and factors affecting their preferences for assessment.

Background: It is crucial to design the evaluation and evaluation processes in education to develop desired behaviours in education and to determine whether the intended goals in education have been achieved. In earlier studies on assessment practices affecting student learning and academic achievement, it has been emphasized that students' preferences for assessment and different practices in assessment have a significant effect on their academic performance.

Design: This research was designed as nonexperimental and quantitative research of correlational design with linear regression statistical analyses approach.

Methods: The participants consisted of 641 students (including 169 medical students with 472 nursing students), who were volunteered to participate in the study and reached with the method of convenience sampling. The 'Assessment Preferences Inventory' adapted to Turkish by Gulbahar and Buyukozturk (2008) was used as a data collection tool. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney-U test, the Kruskal-Wallis test and logistic regression with Bonferroni correction to control the type I error were applied.

Results: In the study, it was found that male students preferred alternative assessment methods and complex/constructive assessment more than female students and male students expected more questions assessing cognitive processes while female students needed more preparations for assessment. In addition, it was determined that medical students preferred complex/constructive assessment more; on the other hand, nursing students preferred simple-multiple choice assessment more and had the need for pre-assessment preparations more. Besides, it was detected that the variables of the students' grade level had an impact on their assessment preferences and that there was a minimal relationship between the students' age and academic achievement with their assessment preferences.

Conclusions: This study showed that the department, gender and grade level were effective on assessment preferences.

Keywords: Alternative assessment; Assessment preferences; Medical education; Nursing education; Traditional assessment.