You'll be regularly assessed, both informally and formally, throughout your time at HYMS. You will also receive regular feedback from your tutors and from each other. Assessment and feedback are key parts of the learning process -- they help you and your tutors to be clear about what you have mastered, what you have still to learn and which skills you need more practice with. Regular assessment and feedback will also help you to identify and remedy for yourself any gaps in your understanding.
Our approach to assessment and feedback
We give you two types of assessment and feedback:
- Formative assessment and feedback is intended mainly for
your own benefit. Regular feedback will help you see for yourself how you're getting on, where you're doing well, and where you need to increase your efforts. This can be formal or informal, but it never 'counts' towards your final qualification.
- Summative assessment takes place at the end of
Years 1, 2, 4 and 5. These exams assess
your progress to make sure you are achieving at an
appropriate level to continue the
course, and ultimately to determine your final
qualification. (The exam at the end of Year 3 is formative, but takes place under exam conditions.)
Direct feedback is particularly important in clinical practice. Throughout the course, we will observe your interactions with patients and surrogates, then provide you with immediate feedback and correction where necessary.
Feedback you can expect to receive
In Phase I:
- verbal feedback, both as a group and individually, on the functioning of your problem-based learning group
- weekly verbal feedback from clinical skills tutors
- weekly verbal feedback from clinical placement tutors
- detailed written feedback every year from clinical skills tutors, plus a verbal discussion
- an individual written review every six months with clinical placement tutors, plus a verbal discussion
- an individual written review every six months with your problem-based learning facilitator, plus a verbal discussion
- formative question papers at the end of each topic -- we'll give you answers and explanatory comments for all questions a week later
- formative exams every six months -- we'l give you answers and explanatory comments for all questions immediately after the exam
In Phases II and III:
- verbal feedback in small groups three times a week
- online formative question papers at the end of each topic -- we'll give you answers and explanatory comments for all questions as soon as you've finished the exam
- clinical examinations at the end of each topic using the same framework as in the summative exams
- written feedback on developing clinical skills and professional behaviour, plus a one-to-one verbal discussion
We give summative exam results to every student individually. This includes your grade, the mark which underlies your grade, and the grade boundaries.
After a clinical exam, you'll be given a copy of your mark sheet for each patient encounter (with examiner comments, both positive and negative) as soon as the exam process has been completed.
Ranking for foundation applications
When Year 5 students apply for Foundation year placements, their applications are assessed using an 'educational performance measure' which essentially ranks students in order, reflecting their position in relation to other students in their year. At HYMS, we use your scores from the Year 4 exams to calculate your ranking. These scores encompass all our curriculum themes, and include knowledge and skills from all previous years of the course.