Faculty evaluation of the clinical performances of students in a problem-based learning curriculum

Background: Problem-based learning (PBL) is increasingly used to teach basic sciences in medical school. Purposes: This study assessed faculty physicians' perceptions of clinical performances of students who had completed a new PBL preclinical curriculum. Methods: Semistructured interviews were conducted with 41 of 82 physician faculty members who had teaching responsibilities for students on one of the following 3rd-year clerkships: internal medicine, surgery, child health, obstetrics and gynecology, and psychiatry and neurology. Results: Using a rating scale on which 1 is poor, 3 is satisfactory, and 5 is excellent, mean scores for eight areas of knowledge/performance ranged from 3.54 to 4.24 for students who had completed the PBL curriculum. Compared to previous 3rd-year students, these students were rated as "better" by a majority of interviewees on clinical reasoning and problem solving, on knowledge of pathophysiology and disease process, and on obtaining an appropriate history. Few interviewees assessed these students as worse than their predecessors on any area of clinical performance. Conclusions: Physician evaluators had generally favorable perceptions of the clinical performance of the first cohort of students to complete a new preclinical curriculum that had PBL as a central component. Copyright (C) 1998 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.