Preface

Recent trends in medical education show an increased propensity towards competency-based education with increased reliance on assessment of mastery, entrustable professional activities, and milestones. Nonetheless, medical education is not exempt from the increasing societal expectations of accountability. Societal expectations make it imperative that medical educators adopt robust quality-assured assessment processes that are both fair and defensible.

This book aims to address a key gap in the literature by offering an international confluence of best practice in relation to quality assurance of assessment systems both within academic institutions and at the level of national and international accreditation. Although much is known about how to construct assessment practices that address assessment utility, there is less agreement on what should be explored when program, institutional, and jurisdictional assessment practices are examined by external regulators. Having a quality assurance guide that can be used across different medical programs and in different institutions across the globe would improve medical education assessment processes and practices as well as aid program development universally.

It is imperative to document evidence-based robust quality-assured assessment processes in order to guide medical institutions in developing internal monitoring processes that are vital to the ongoing improvement of the medical education they provide. In addition, accreditation agencies such as the General Medical Council, Australian Medical Council, Medical Council of Canada, and the American Medical Association have recently strengthened their standards and requirements around assessment because they recognize that assessment determines the quality of graduates. Quality assurance of assessment in medical education guarantees social accountability and quality improvement.

The planned approach is to provide international best practice through case studies. The chapters developed in this book are not intended to be prescriptive; they are solely to guide medical educators in improving the quality of their assessment processes and practices. The authors aim to inform, stimulate appraisal, and offer practical value by providing readers with case studies and examples of quality-assured assessment best practices.