Development of self-assessment skills in medical students

The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of third-year medical students to evaluate accurately their own level of knowledge and performance of skills associated with anaesthesia. A total of 130 students participated in the project by completing a self-assessment form which was later matched with the corresponding instructors' evaluation. Analysis of the data identified only 4.6% of the students' self-assessments to be in general agreement with those evaluations prepared by their instructors. When the data was divided according to the placement of the anaesthesia clerkship within the third-year curriculum no significant trends of any type were shown. Students did not improve in the course of the year in their ability to evaluate themselves accurately according to the objectives established by their clinical instructors. The nature of the evaluations prepared by the clinical instructors remained fairly constant, indicating that their objectives and criteria for acceptable performance remained unchanged throughout the year.