He has considered that for next year’s students of Anatomy II seminar, the testing evaluation will be modified in a few ways. Firstly he will once again review the questions which are made for the students and try to reduce the amount of ambiguity currently present in the questions. He is also considering the possible involvement of students who have passed Anatomy to help with the formulation and phrasing of questions which are still causing trouble for students. The issues of pressures of time were heavily addressed and he has said that next year, there will probably be more time given to students (maybe 15 minutes) to complete the tests in order to allow proper time for students to understand the essence of questions and to formulate their answers correctly.

With regard to the marks required for students to pass the test – this will not change, as it needs to follow the rules of Masaryk University. MIMSA was told that the reason that the marking method changed from the initial 18 out of 30 from all tests to 6 out of 10 in every test, was in order to be compliment to terms made for students studying in Czech Language and MIMSA feels this is a valid point in the interest in fairness. However, Prof. Dubový appreciates that International students have problems with selecting which book to study from, but maintains that it is important not to study from one book alone, but to make collaborations of notes from many resources and MIMSA whole-heartedly supports this too. However, we explained that in order to have a good foundation for assessing which facts are most relevant and important, we suggested that the book written for Czech students, be made available to International students, but obviously in English. Thus MIMSA suggested again that they would collaborate wherever possible in making this material available as soon as possible.

Prof. Dubový and MIMSA share the same goal of helping student’s with their studies, but of course we all also agree that there are situations in which not every student is able to pass a subject, especially in the difficult and deep studies of Medicine. Students are expected as their duties require them to study outside of the classroom and lecture theatre and to command their own learning. Therefore tests devised for students are intended to be somewhat ‘testing’ and thus inevitably some people will possibly fail.

None-the-less, together we can agree that there are obvious flaws in the current method used to evaluate students for Anatomy II seminars, and therefore it is quite possible that some of what Prof. Dubový called “the good students” are unable to pass tests, even when allowed to repeat; not because of their lack of knowledge, but because of some error in their assessment methods and criteria, and this was the main focus of outcomes for the meeting today.

With this point held in the highest respect, MIMSA suggested several solutions, which were sent by various students to MIMSA to put forward on their behalf to Prof. Dubový, who considered each one very carefully. MIMSA suggested that the department allowed students another attempt, at the tests of Anatomy II seminar in September, with the considerations of individual cases for each student. This was received very well, and Prof. Dubový agreed that it would be possible to use the teacher’s evaluation methods to further compliment the evaluations made by the three tests. Also, Prof. Dubový said that he would ask the lecturers of Anatomy II, organisers of MIMSA Anatomy Sessions and Assistants who teach students directly for information about which students showed generally good motivations for studying Anatomy and therefore could possibly have had an injustice by the testing methods, because they were studying Anatomy throughout the semester. This is something that MIMSA feels is a very good use of assessment of student’s abilities and we believe that it is a good method to determine which students should be given another chance. With this great outcome, Prof. Dubový has agreed to see individual cases of student’s situations with the representation of MIMSA as their student’s association and thus to explore whether it is possible to allow students another chance at the tests in September.

Prof. Dubový made many references to the confidence of the Anatomy department in the students, and he made it clear that he has some problems in this aspect with both Czech and International students. He made it very clear that there are some students who use excuses of illness and inability for to sit tests, after they fail tests, usually with the combinations of a Physicians letter, and whilst this has to be a recognised form of mitigating circumstance, he is well aware that students are able to abuse this system and thus the Department of Anatomy looses confidence in some student’s from this fact. He explained that individual situations are very difficult to ascertain, but that he was willing to do this, but that in his experience he has found that a lot of people take advantage of these methods, so that it is becoming increasing difficult for the department to determine “valid excuses” from falsified ones which cannot be challenged.

It is important to note here, that what was discussed today at the meeting was in the interest of all students and that we are still waiting for Prof. Dubový to approve of all of these criteria, which we hope you can all understand will take some time since collaborations with the Anatomy departmental staff is required. We understand that it is a matter of some urgency for students who failed to have a concrete answer as to what procedure to follow, but unfortunately we cannot say this explicitly as of yet. However, we suggest that students begin to form their arguments for why they feel that they should be given another chance in September to repeat the tests.

MIMSA suggests that all students methodically and constructively compose their arguments and reasons for why they feel that they are eligible for another attempt at the Anatomy II seminar tests in September, making sure that the arguments stem from concrete facts, and avoid personal emotions as much as possible. We need your help here, because MIMSA does not know everything about all the cases, so please put your cases together and send them to education@mimsa.cz and for now we are waiting for Prof. Dubový to gather his information from teachers, assistant etc. so that we can start to take individual cases to the Department. He has said that he will send a list of the students who the Anatomy department feels is eligible to have their case heard, so we are waiting for that list from him for now.

So in summary, we suggest that students formulate their arguments and that students should e-mail MIMSA with their Name, UCO, and explanations to education@mimsa.cz. The more information you put, the stronger your case will be. We have listed below the criteria which MIMSA feels will be important to address in each case:

• Good marks in most tests
• Were regularly prepared for their seminars
• Actively involved in seminars
• Regularly attend the Anatomy lectures (and stay to the end)
• Were in regular attendance of MIMSA Anatomy Sessions (70% attendance)

As always, your participation is voluntary and of course, if you wish to be apart from this, we will respect your decision, but MIMSA feels that you should really take this avenue and use it your advantage. If there are any further questions, feel free to E-mail us at education@mimsa.cz

Best Regards,

EDUCATION TEAM

THE ISSUES:

Test supposed to help students:

The Anatomy II tests were introduced with the goal of encouraging students to study Anatomy from an early stage in the student’s learning of the subject. This is why the pressure of Three, 10 questions tests is applied to the 2^nd semester of study of Anatomy at Masaryk University. The preparation for the final examination of Anatomy III at the end of the 3^rd semester of Anatomy is a validly justified point repeatedly made by the Anatomy Department. However, it has become apparent from MIMSA’s continued help towards students, in combination of the teaching from the anatomy department, that there are some students who are not evaluated justly and therefore do not pass the tests of anatomy II with sufficient representation of their knowledge. This is a failing of the ethos of the tests as it results in a feeling of inadequacy and incredulous belief that student’s are not able to study Anatomy, even when the reality is that they know a lot of information, sometimes a lot more than the minimum requirement.

Objectivity:

The current system of evaluation (using 10 questions – each with 5 statements and giving 10 minutes to answer them) is not sufficient to assess whether students truly have a grasp and understanding of Anatomy. E.g. a score of 5 out of 10 does not necessarily mean that the student has 50% knowledge of the subject. Surely a test which holds so much importance in the academic lives of students should be made with serious objectivity and should certainly leave little doubt in the minds of the examiners as to the students’ actual level of comprehension of the subject.

Objectivity in testing is lost when there are unnecessary pressures introduced to the system. In this specific example of Anatomy these pressures take two major forms. The first is that the tests require students to read, evaluate and select the answers for 10 questions which are each made up of 5 statements quite often unrelated to each other. This means that students have on average one minute per question and further, they have only 20 seconds per statement! This seems to be insufficient time to really appreciate the essence of questions and this is further complicated by the fact that questions sometimes say “select the correct answer” and sometimes say “select the incorrect answer”. We feel that this provides possibilities to make silly mistakes due to circumstances and not due to lack of knowledge.

The second unnecessary pressure is that when students have more than one test to repeat, on the same day, it places a large burden on their spirit and confidence to have a one hour wait in between tests during which time, some people are crying and are severely upset that they failed the first test so cannot continue demoralises the students.

Materials available:

Students currently use the recommended books to study anatomy II from: Thieme series – Internal Pocket anatomy; Gray’s anatomy for students; Clinically Oriented anatomy by Moore; lectures and resources put onto the IS. This proves a problem since there are many resources to filter through and to determine which information is correct is difficult, especially for the tests on the Cardiovascular system, which has many variations of information for lymphatics and veins. A more comprehensive book with specific information is required in order to pass the tests. If not, then the information should be checked in order to make sure that the tests are fair in accordance with what students are learning. There are many examples from past tests which help this argument greatly.

Constant comparison to Czech students:

Unfortunately students feel that they are always compared with the Czech students of Medicine. We would like to say that there are several reasons that this comparison is unfair. Students of the International Medical programme are subjected to added pressures by studying outside of their home countries. These include such factors of problems of living in a foreign environment, troubles with local language and of course the added pressure of studying within a system which is very unfamiliar to International students simply because of lack-of-experience. Further, the Czech students of Medicine are able to use the full extent of resources available for studying Anatomy. For example there are particular books which are written by the academic staff forking in the Department of Anatomy. This gives students using these materials an advantage of appreciating the specific details that the authors’ feel are important points to memorize. At the MIMSA anatomy sessions run this last semester, there were some Czech national students who were in attendance and they constantly made references to how the International students have to spend so much more time for something which they do not have to.

Had a bad day:

As well as the previously mentioned points, there are also those points which require some compassion in order to appreciate. There is of course the possibility that a completely prepared student could come to the examination and could have had a bad day, could be feeling unwell or could be extremely nervous and could make mistakes, not representative of their knowledge. This student unfortunately is not able to redeem himself/herself without losing the chance to normally continue studies and therefore most probably losing a year of studies. For a test which was supposed to encourage students to study, to have the detrimental effect of causing students to lose a year of studies or seeing their studies terminated, seems counter-intuitive and therefore we suggest alternative criteria of evaluation in exceptional circumstances.

SUGGESTIONS:

Materials:

Materials given to Czech students should be made available for International students if the tests are to continue as they are, or else there should be questions made from the recommended reading list for International students separately.

Testing conditions:

Longer time for evaluation

Less confusing statements

Consolidation of the questions to be at least relevant to one topic.

Teacher’s assessments of students:

When a department as large as the anatomy department exists, it must have a plethitude of teachers in order to ensure that students learn effectively. These teachers obviously have respected levels of understanding and knowledge. It should be made certain that these respected teachers have the responsibility of teaching their respective students and also have a voice in the evaluation of students.

More emphasis on teaching, less emphasis on testing:

Some of the teachers currently teaching International students of Anatomy have been directing their teaching towards the tests of anatomy, with such vigour, that when students ask direct questions, the answer that they sometime receive is “maybe” or “you don’t need to know that for your test”. It seems such a shame that students are asking questions and showing their interests and are being give such answers in their lessons.

For the current students who failed the tests:

We suggest that the Anatomy department considers teachers’ evaluations of their students, the lecturer evaluation of students, their attendances to classes and MIMSA anatomy sessions since all of these criteria serve towards the same goal as the tests of Anatomy II seminar, which is to encourage students to learn the difficult science of Anatomy, not to deter them and push them into fear of learning methods. As such we suggest to the Department of Anatomy to let those students, who the teachers’ feel are eligible, to have another opportunity to show that they are capable of demonstrating their knowledge, in another attempt at the repetition tests in September.

We also suggest that the previous method of examination criteria, where students needed a mark of 18 over three tests, be re-introduced in order to establish a chance for students to have extenuating circumstances for one test.

Please E-mail education@mimsa.cz if you would like to add anything to these arguments and good studies to all.

EDUCATION TEAM