Changes in Self Evaluations During Third-Year Clinical Rotations

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine whether, as the result of clinical experience in the third year of medical school and feedback on their performance from instructors, students would be able to perceive their areas of weakness, improve performance, and develop a perception of their performance that increasingly conformed to how faculty perceived them. Students evaluated their own performance in each rotation and compared their ratings with faculty ratings of them, using the same 16-item evaluation checklist. Students tended to rate themselves higher on all factors than the faculty rated them. Both faculty and students tended to give higher ratings in successive rotations, but changes in students' ratings were approximately twice those of faculty members from the first to last rotations. Students' perceptions of their performance seemed most subject to change in the areas of knowledge and management skills.