• Differentiate internal assessment from other types of evaluation.
• Enumerate abilities to be included for internal assessment.
• Design a system of continuous internal assessment.

Have you ever thought that most examinations in our country fit well in the rational and impersonal ethos nurtured by bureaucracy and industrialization, where the candidate is merely reduced to a number ? The marking is done impersonally in accordance with pre arranged criteria of relevance and correctness. Over the years, many improvements have been made and our facts, recall of principles, use of numerical data, construction and testing of hypotheses, coherent communication and so on.

However, the outcome of a course consists of more than the ability to recall and use information. It also involves acquisition of a range of abilities and skills and development of certain desirable behaviours. Thus, development of disciplined working habits, acquisition of study skills, establishment of interests, development of aesthetic tastes, social sensitivity and social attitudes are all part of the educational process.

Before proceeding further, recall that we have been placing a great emphasis on feedback as a means of improving learning as well as teaching methodology. This diagnostic teaching facilitates constant improvement of teaching learning system. However, this mechanism will be full operational only when this feedback is of a continuous nature. This is in line with the current thinking of placing emphasis on the individual student.

In professional courses, especially medicine, psychomotor and affective skills are very important. Acquisition and evaluation of these skills will undoubtedly be more valid, if based on frequent, if not continuous, observation during the course rather than at the end of the course. The continuous observation enables us to assess the student as a whole rather than assessing individual skills here and there. Further, there are many skills like giving injections, responding to patient to evaluation in a term end examination.

Thus, continuous internal assessment (CIA) can be viewed as an attempt to gain more and better information about the ability of the student and use it as the course develops. Traditionally you have been arbitrarily classifying students as good or bad. CIA tries to replace that arbitrary classification by systematic means. Essentially. CIA is characterised by the following :

• It represents a continuous awareness by the teachers, of the knowledge and development of his students.

• It emphasises observation of growth of various abilities thereby enabling the teacher to take corrective action as and when required.

• It provides knowledge, not only of achievement but also of progression towards it - not merely of where he has got but also of how he got there.

Designing a system of CIA will require that different outcomes of learning are identified and recorded. Some possible outcomes can be identifies as follows :

Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation, Drawing Skills, Ability to handle instruments, Communication skills, Social Skills (team work, leadership), Personal skills (regularity, hard work, originality, initiative), Interest, Scientific attitudes, Appreciation, Creativity etc.

• Read literature other than text books.

• Join / associate / participate in activities related to subject, e. g. professional association, debates, trips, etc.

• Visit places of interest.

• Seek to identify and solve challenging problems.

• Seek fresh clues beyond those already known.

• Accept errors in arguments and already known.

• Have emotional maturity.

• Exhibit good manners and social graces.

• Demonstrate ability to get along well with others.

• Search / locate material from reference sources.

• Communicate well with the patients and colleagues.

• Convince the patient regarding desirability of an action.

How do we carry out the process of internal assessment ?

Often, a few class tests are held and the marks obtained in these tests are taken to represent the internal assessment. It is pertinent at this point to make a distinction between various types of evaluation that can be employed. You have already learnt about them. To recall, these are :

• Formative evaluation : It refers to a diagnostic evaluation with a purpose to provide feed back to the students and teachers regarding adequacy of teaching. However, the performance in formative evaluation should never be taken for a final pass / fail decision.

• Summative evaluation : It is the end of the term examination which takes into consideration the knowledge and skills acquired during the entire course. The professional university examinations fall under this category.

• Internal assessment :It refers to frequent observation of  the student by the teacher to know the acquisition of predetermined desirable behaviours and deals more with those abilities which can not be tested in a summative evaluation.

CIA tends to augment and not replace the present examination system and is an important step towards integration of all 3 curricular components i.e. objectives, methodology and evaluation. At the same time, CIA does not mean a few mid - term examinations in place of or in addition to final examination. This is a very important distinction and should always be kept in mind.

The main purpose of CIA is to test those abilities which cannot be tested by term end examination. For this, teachers must identify the abilities they want to develop in the student in their own subject and allocate weightage to these selected abilities. Meaningful, valid and reliable tools of evaluation should then be used to evaluate these abilities.

For an effective feedback function, it is imperative that marks obtained by students are open and made known to them immediately. A provision must also be kept for discussing the results with individual students.

The question of giving weightage of CIA is important. Medical Council of India in its recent recommendations has given a weightage of 20% ; however, many authorities in the field suggest a weightage of up to 50%. More important than weightage is the fact that evaluation of these abilities will promote their active learning by the students.

Designing a system of CIA :

The MCI guidelines on Graduate Medical Education have rightly pointed out that the focus of CIA should be on the process of learning rather than on the product. In essence, it means that during internal assessment, we should concentrate more on how the learner learnt. You may perhaps like to read the chapter on Assessment of Non - scholastic abilities before you proceed further.

The plan of CIA that we are discussing here has been formulated after a great deal of discussion and deliberations with over 100 teachers from all disciplines - however, you can devise your own plan as long as it meets the following criteria :

• it focusses on the process of learning

• it gives priority to psychomotor and effective skills

• it involves all faculty members of a department and

• its results are immediately made known to the learner and discussed with him to make the process of learning better.

The plan proposed by us allocates 100 marks to CIA, which can be converted to desire marks at the end of the session. Out of these, 50 marks are alloted to theory and 50 to practicals. To relatively increase the weightage to practical skills, affective skills have been clubbed with theory.

Theory : Periodical tests have been alloted 30 marks. You should be careful in distinguishing formative evaluation from internal assessment. This means that each and every test administered to students should not be counted towards internal assessment. You should inform the students well in advance that such and such test will be used for internal assessment - please ensure that not more than one test per semester is earmarked for this purpose.

The  remaining 20 marks will go towards assessment of the following points. We want you to understand that they may be some subjectivity involved in this process - hence this marking must be done by all faculty members. The process of calculating average will iron out any biases that may have crept in.

Let us now elaborate more on these points :

• Interest in the subject (asking questions in the class, reading beyond text books, interaction with teachers and peers).

• Active participation (volunteering for presentation performance during discussions).

• Scientific attitudes (rational thinking, curiosity to clarify doubts, ability to draw conclusions, sincerety in reporting observations).

• Interpersonal skills (accepting mistakes , understanding others' view point, non - argumentative and respectful behaviour)

Each of these points will be alloted 5 marks each, making it a total of 20.

Practicals : These skills also need to be assessed by means of periodical assessments, specially at the end of the posting or at the end of a semester. You should follow the same guidelines as discussed for theory. These tests should carry 40 marks. The remaining 10 marks should be for record books.

You would have noticed that in this system, we are making multiple observations using multiple examiners and the marking scheme is transparent. This makes it more objective and more reliable as compared to the present system. You are also providing ample opportunities to the learner to improve his performance, which in fact, is the true purpose of evaluation.

Documentation : We will like to remind you again that as per MCI guidelines, a student can be detained if he fails in internal assessment. It is therefore mandatory that meticulous record keeping is done so that the marks are available for inspection by anyone. The proforma used by us is reproduces here - however, you can think of more innovative ways to record the results.

We hope you will appreciate the role of internal assessment in giving a desired direction to learning. It is better if all the faculty members of your department discuss this scheme and come out with appropriate modifications to suit your academic milieu.