This autumn again, EDU medical students excelled in the International Progress Test of the European Board of Medical Assessors (EBMA IPT).
EDU’s medical students regularly take part in the EBMA International Progress Test (EBMA IPT) run by the European Board of Medical Assessors (EBMA), Maastricht, the Netherlands. The EBMA IPT benchmarks the learning progress of students at international medical schools throughout their studies. Such external quality assurance of teaching and learning is of critical importance to EDU. Their students thus take the EBMA IPT twice a year.
EDU Student Average Performance Above Peers
After excellent results earlier this and last year, this November’s data showed once more that, overall, EDU medical students perform well compared to peer students at similar stages of study. Most notably, EDU students on average performed equal or better than their peers in all 13 topical categories of the IPT. Especially, year one students scored significantly higher than their peers (in 11 of the 13 categories tested). All EDU students scored at least at a satisfactory level or higher, compared to approx. 10% of their peers from other medical schools not reaching that performance level.
The following figure shows the distribution of EDU medical students’ scores (the green boxplot) against all other students’ scores (the red boxplot), with the indicative EBMA IPT grades shown by the horizontal lines on the plot.
EDU’s Digital Pedagogies: First Class Performance
While, due to COVID-19 Pandemic, most medical programmes incorporated more digital synchronous and asynchronous methods into their toolbox, EDU’s didactical methods are digital native: Their focus is not on avoiding physical contact but rather on maximizing engagement while giving the choice of location and using the breadth and flexibility of digital methods.
Approaching challenges from a problem-based perspective and in small learning groups, EDU’s students learn under the dedicated and individual guidance of experts, tutors and mentors. Educators can focus on students using EDU’s digital platform, ensuring adequate support and direction in interactive formats – like active learning labs – and benefitting from a wealth of data to make effective teaching decisions.
EDU’s digital campus, virtual labs, libraries and meeting spaces allow for the dynamic and individual engagement of all students with the challenges of medical studies. EDU’s results in the EBMA IPT show and confirm the success and effectiveness of EDU’s digital pedagogies.
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About the EBMA International Progress Test
Progress tests are longitudinal, feedback-oriented assessments of the development and sustainability of cognitive knowledge during a learning process. Rather than looking at mastery of a small area of knowledge, progress testing assesses student performance over all areas of their field of study. The EBMA IPT, running from 2011, has been designed by specialists at Maastricht University and has since expanded to be adopted by a number of medical schools worldwide that have joined the EBMA consortium, from Mexico, Australia, Mozambique and Saudi Arabia . The test consists of 100 question items covering a blueprint of 13 distinct systems and domains of medicine.
