Disciplines: Simulation Assessment

Health Sciences

Interactive cases are great assessment tools for assessing critical skills for health professionals. One study shows the use of multi-scenerio cases for the assessment of diagnosis skills and management plans for anesthesia resident students. In this case, seven different scenerios were presented to the students followed by a set of questionnaire for the assessment purpose. The instructor used a rubric and a 7-point scale to ensure an accurate and transparent evaluation of student performance (Blum et al., 2014).

Natural Sciences

Task-specific exercises during or after the simulation can assess students’ understanding of the subject matter and their ability to apply their acquired knowledge into practice. Starry Night™ is a planetarium software used to teach standards-based lunar concepts. This software has a series of task-based tests for the asseement of students’ understanding of different lunar episodes (Trundle & Bell, 2010).

Social Sciences

Combination of assessment tools can also be used to assess different aspects of students’ learning. Ambrosio (2004) used two assessment tools to assess his students in an Ethnic Conflicts course role-play simulation. The first assessment tool was a post-simulation discussion that demonstrated students’ understanding of theoretical dynamics encountered in ethnic conflict situations. The second assessment tool was a take-home exam which assessed students’ ability to connect their experience in simulation to the existing literature on ethnic conflicts.