Andrea Gingerich
Topic: Rater-based Assessment as Social Judgements: Rethinking the Etiology of Rater Errors
Date: September 21, 2011
Time: 12:00pm to 1:30pm (Lunch will be served at DHCC)
Locations:
- Diamond Health Care Centre 2264
- IRC 305
- CWH 2D22
- MSB 210
- RJH 125
- NHSC 9-374
- UHNBC 5009 (Port #1)
Abstract
Measurement errors in rater-based assessments are commonly attributed to the idiosyncratic subjectivity of the raters. Solutions trying to reduce the impact of rater subjectivity, however, have been largely unsuccessful. Interestingly, rater idiosyncrasy has been studied in many domains of psychology including social cognition. This literature, describes “impression formation” as a process of making categorical judgments. Although these categorizations can be idiosyncratic, raters have been shown to consistently construct one of a few possible interpretations of each ratee with these different categories explaining some of the error variance in ratings. If raters naturally form categorical judgments, an assessment system requiring ordinal or interval ratings may inadvertently introduce conversion errors due to translation techniques unique to each rater. Potential implications for rater-based assessments due to raters forming differing categorizations of ratees combined with the use of rating scales to collect categorical judgments will be discussed.
Biography
As a research associate with the Northern Medical Program at the University of Northern British Columbia, Andrea is immersed in medical education research. She is also a PhD candidate at Maastricht University’s School of Health Professions Education and with the expertise of supervisors Cees van der Vleuten, Kevin Eva and Glenn Regehr is trying to better understand the cognitive processes used by raters to assess student performances. More specifically, she is interested in the influence of examiners’ innate socio-cognitive processes on perception, interpretation and assessment of student performances and how those processes may influence measurement outcomes. Andrea previously completed a master’s degree in medical education from the University of Dundee in 2010 with a thesis focussing on assessment in problem-based learning. Before relocating to Prince George in 2006, she was sole owner and operator of a multidisciplinary clinic in rural Ontario where she practised as a naturopathic doctor after graduating from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in 2002. She also completed a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Western Ontario in physiology and psychology in 1998.
Accreditation:
As an organization accredited to sponsor continuing medical education for physicians by the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS), the UBC Division of Continuing Professional Development designates this educational program as meeting the accreditation criteria of the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 1.5 Mainpro-M1 credits (per session). This program has been reviewed and approved by UBC Division of Continuing Professional Development. Each physician should claim only those credits he/she actually spent in the activity.
Accreditation Statement:
The CHES Research Rounds is a self-approved group learning activity (Section 1) as defined by the Maintenance of Certification program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
