Distance education. Part 3. Assessment of and feedback to students at a distance.

INTRODUCTION: Assessment of students at distance, in a course with over 20 units (subjects), provides special challenges in providing timely, accurate and detailed feedback both formatively and summatively. METHOD: A description of assessment practices including reflective journals, essays, critical appraisal of literature, case studies or teaching presentations in video and written format, clinical audits, and large research projects is provided. The impact of a multitude of criterion-referenced methods of students, teachers and administrative services as well as quality assurance issues are measured. CONCLUSION: Students preferred multiple levels of formative and summative assessment using criterion referencing to exams. These methods were thought to be contextually relevant to clinical practice and examined knowledge, cognition and performance appropriately. Length of assessment task, difficulty with English as a second language and lack of detail or clarity on written feedback posed problems for a number of students. Quality assurance procedures have been put into place to rectify some of these problems.