ABSTRACT
The assessment of medical and healthcare competence continues to be one of the most challenging aspects of the education, training, licensing, and regulation of healthcare professionals such as doctors, nurses, dentists, optometrists, and other allied healthcare workers. The assessment of the competence of individual healthcare professionals looms larger than ever. Assessment involves the assignment of numbers, quantities, or characteristics to some dimension. Tests and assessment devices, therefore, are measurement instruments in education and psychology. The Flexner Report has been pivotal to most of modern medical education including the development of standardized testing and assessment in medicine. Like classical test theory and G-theory, it can be used for the design, analysis, and scoring of tests, questionnaires, and assessments measuring abilities, attitudes, or other variables. Many health professionals undergo assessment in the workplace when they are in professional practice. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
