Ro J. Robotham

Abstract

Developing a case-based examination to prepare students for their internships

When designing a course, assuring alignment between course objectives, activities and assessment is of high importance. The Master Program in Psychology includes a module in Neuropsychology that consists of three courses: a lecture series, a seminar class and a practical class. The overall aim of the practical class is to prepare students for their internship in the field of neuropsychology. The learning objectives are highly applied and include amongst other that the student must be able to “analyze direct or indirect experiences of cases and methods of assessment and intervention based on neuropsychological theories and empirical evidence”. The aim of the project was to develop and evaluate a new assessment form for the course in order to improve alignment between course objectives, activities and assessment.

The alignment between objectives, activities and assessment was analyzed. The course objectives and course activities were considered to be well-aligned as both revolved around applied aspects of neuropsychology. The assessment however was not considered to be sufficiently aligned with the objectives or activities of the course. A new case-based assessment was therefore developed, applied, and then evaluated through student interviews.

The students reported the new examination form to be meaningful and to be well-aligned with the course activities. They also reported the examination to be closely related to the tasks completed in their internship. The student interviews revealed not only that some formal aspects related to the examination had been unclear as well as the criteria for a good performance. In addition, the students pointed out that the course activities and assessment only covered some of the learning objectives.

Moving forwards, formal aspects related to the examination as well as criteria for a good performance should be made more clear to the students. In addition, more relational aspects of clinical work should be included in the activities and the examination. It may also be worth considering making minor changes to the course objectives