ArticleFamily medicine2024
Imprecise Clinical Assessments and Inaccurate Grades: Family Medicine Clerkship Director Perspectives.
Article in Family medicine, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Education Research: Moving Beyond "Outstanding": Neurology Program Directors' Perspectives on the MSPE Clerkship Summaries.Neurology. Education · 2026Article
- Clerkship Grading, USMLE Step 1, and Student Distinction: A CERA Study.Family medicine · 2026Article
- Performance Trends and Grading Variability in Clinical Education: A Record-Based Cross-Sectional Study of Medical Graduate Students at Mutah University, Jordan.Advances in medical education and practice · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesAs application to residency programs becomes increasingly competitive, educational leaders face growing student concern about imprecise clinical assessments and clerkship grades.
methodsAs part of a large annual survey of family medicine clerkship directors (FMCDs), 10 questions were disseminated in May 2023 about perceived levels of imprecise assessments by faculty. We aimed to determine to what extent respondents felt their institution's evaluation system propagated inaccurate grading.
resultsA total of 52% of 169 FMCDs responded to the survey. Of these, 7% of respondents were completely confident that their preceptors would give two students of identical competence the same clinical evaluation rating. FMCDs estimated that an average of 38% of their preceptors inaccurately rate student performance. Most clerkships use an Honors/High Pass/Pass/Fail grading system. We found that 51% of FMCDs prefer to use a different grading paradigm than they currently use. We asked FMCDs to estimate the percentage of students that expressed concern over inaccurate preceptor ratings. Grading systems with more tiers were associated with a higher percentage of concerned students.
conclusionsClerkship grades are widely used by residency program directors to classify and differentiate student applicants. We identified a significant concern from FMCDs that clinical evaluation ratings can vary greatly. Given the high stakes and perceived inaccuracy of clerkship grading, we recommend continued investigation into the appropriate weighing and usage of clinical evaluations. Continued exploration is recommended to develop grading paradigms centered on criterion-based assessment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.