TY  - JOUR
AU  - Setrakian, Jean
AU  - Gauthier, Geneviève
AU  - Bergeron, Linda
AU  - Chamberland, Martine
AU  - St-Onge, Christina
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/3/12
TI  - Comparison of Assessment by a Virtual Patient and by Clinician-Educators of Medical Students' History-Taking Skills: Exploratory Descriptive Study
JO  - JMIR Med Educ
SP  - e14428
VL  - 6
IS  - 1
KW  - virtual patients
KW  - medical history taking
KW  - automated scoring
KW  - simulation training
KW  - medical education
KW  - medical students
KW  - educational assessment
KW  - computer software
KW  - medical history–taking skills
KW  - medical history–taking skills assessment
AB  - Background: A virtual patient (VP) can be a useful tool to foster the development of medical history–taking skills without the inherent constraints of the bedside setting. Although VPs hold the promise of contributing to the development of students’ skills, documenting and assessing skills acquired through a VP is a challenge. Objective: We propose a framework for the automated assessment of medical history taking within a VP software and then test this framework by comparing VP scores with the judgment of 10 clinician-educators (CEs). Methods: We built upon 4 domains of medical history taking to be assessed (breadth, depth, logical sequence, and interviewing technique), adapting these to be implemented into a specific VP environment. A total of 10 CEs watched the screen recordings of 3 students to assess their performance first globally and then for each of the 4 domains. Results: The scores provided by the VPs were slightly higher but comparable with those given by the CEs for global performance and for depth, logical sequence, and interviewing technique. For breadth, the VP scores were higher for 2 of the 3 students compared with the CE scores. Conclusions: Findings suggest that the VP assessment gives results akin to those that would be generated by CEs. Developing a model for what constitutes good history-taking performance in specific contexts may provide insights into how CEs generally think about assessment. 
SN  - 2369-3762
UR  - http://mededu.jmir.org/2020/1/e14428/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/14428
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32163036
DO  - 10.2196/14428
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/14428
ER  -