• Anja Maria Braend, Sarah Frandsen Gran, Jan C Frich, and Morten Lindbaek.
• University of Oslo, Blindern, N-0318 Oslo, Norway.
• Med Teach. 2010 Jan 1;32(4):333-9.

BackgroundFormative assessment of medical students' clinical performance during general practice clerkship is necessary to learn consultation skills.AimsOur aim was to triangulate feedback using patient questionnaires, written self-assessment and teachers' observation-based assessment, and to describe the content of this feedback.MethodWe developed StudentPEP, a 15-item version of EUROPEP, a tool for measuring patients' evaluation of quality in general practice. The teacher and student forms consisted of five StudentPEP-items and open-ended questions asking for approval and improvement needed on four aspects. Quantitative scores were analyzed statistically. Free-text comments were analyzed and categorized into 'specific and concrete' versus 'general and unspecific'.ResultsOne hundred seventy-three students returned data from 2643 consultations. Mean patients' scores for 15 items were 4.3-4.8 on a five-point Likert scale. Mean teacher scores were 4.4 on five items, while students' mean self-assessments were 3.6-3.8. In an analysis of 380 consultations, students were more specific and concrete in their self-evaluation compared with teachers (p < 0.01).ConclusionPatients scored students' performance high compared with students' self-assessments. Teachers' scores were in accordance with patients' scores. Teachers' written evaluations of students were often general. There is a potential for improving teachers' feedback in terms of more specific and concrete comments.

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