Candidates registered for reasonable adjustments underperform compared to other candidates in the national undergraduate Prescribing Safety Assessment: Retrospective cohort analysis (2014-2018).

Autor: Hutchinson K; St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospitals, Barts Health NHS Trust, UK., Ricketts WM; St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospitals, Barts Health NHS Trust, UK.; Institute of Health Sciences Education, Queen Mary, University of London, UK., Maxwell S; British Pharmacological Society, London, UK.; Clinical Pharmacology Unit, Edinburgh Medical School, University of Edinburgh, UK., Ng FL; St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospitals, Barts Health NHS Trust, UK.; Department of Clinical Pharmacology, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: British journal of clinical pharmacology [Br J Clin Pharmacol] 2021 Mar; Vol. 87 (3), pp. 946-954. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Jul 08.
DOI: 10.1111/bcp.14446
Abstrakt: Aims: Candidates with disabilities are eligible for reasonable adjustments (RA) while undertaking the national Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA). The PSA is a novel open-book, time-constrained, multiformat assessment that may pose challenges to candidates with dyslexia and other disabilities.
Methods: Retrospective cohort analysis of 36 140 UK candidates undertaking first-sitting of the PSA (2014-2018).
Results: Of the 36 140 candidates, 9.1% (3284) were registered for RA. The RA group had lower pass rates (absolute difference 1.94%, 95% confidence interval 1.01-2.87%; P < .001) and assessment scores (1.16 percentage marks, 95% confidence interval 0.83-1.48; P < .001) compared with the non-RA group. This absolute difference is small relative to overall variability. This difference persists after adjusting for confounding factors (medical school and paper), and was present for all 8 different question types. The attainment gap within each medical school is negatively correlated with the school's overall performance, both in terms of pass rate (P < .001) and scores (P = .01). The RA group were also less likely to perceive the PSA as an appropriate test, having easy to follow layout/presentation or clear/unambiguous questions, even after adjusting for candidate performance.
Conclusion: This analysis identifies slight differences in academic performance of candidates requiring RA in a national undergraduate assessment. The study is limited by the unavailability of data on ethnicity, sex, age, diagnosis and time of diagnosis. While further research is required to determine the cause of the attainment gap, this study emphasises the need to maintain a careful review on the fairness and validity of all aspects of the assessment.
(© 2020 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Pharmacological Society.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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