Attitude to workplace-based assessment

We conducted an email survey to evaluate attitudes to workplace-based assessment. The questionnaire was sent to consultants, career specialists and trainees working in the East London Trust (n=245). We received 59 responses (response rate 24%). Among the responders there were 25 consultants, 12 specialist registrars/specialty trainees year 4, 19 specialty trainees years 1-3, 2 associate specialists and 1 staff grade. Almost two-thirds of the responders (n=39, 66%) were uncertain whether the system of competency assessment was better than older systems; 21 (35%) were unsure whether it would improve patient care in the long run and 18 (30%) believed it would not improve patient care. Thirty-six responders (61%) believed that it would increase their paper work and distract from their clinical work. The majority (42% v. 21%) of the workplace-based assessment trained group also believed that new tools would fail to provide more non-judgemental and informative feedback compared with established assessment procedures. The survey shows uncertainty among trainees and trainers about the effectiveness of the new workplace-based assessment tools. However, attitude changes with familiarity. In case of the Calman reforms trainees were more satisfied after 18 months of initial application of the system (Paice et al, 2000). This survey indicates the need for further robust investigation to examine the questions of confidence in the workplace-based assessment, the content of the workplace-based assessment tool training sessions and the development of workplace-based assessment methods requiring less time to reach valid and reliable conclusions about the competency of the trainees.