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A history of assessment in medical education Lambert W. T. Schuwirth1,2   · Cees P. M. van der Vleuten1,2 Received: 28 July 2020 / Accepted: 19 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract The way quality of assessment has been perceived and assured has changed considerably in the recent 5 decades. Originally, assessment was mainly seen as a measurement problem with the aim to tell people apart, the competent from the not competent. Logically, reproducibility or reliability and construct validity were seen as necessary and sufficient for assessment quality and the role of human judgement was minimised. Later, assessment moved back into the authentic workplace with various workplace-based assessment (WBA) methods. Although originally approached from the same measurement framework, WBA and other assessments gradually became assessment processes that included or embraced human judgement but based on good support and assessment expertise. Currently, assessment is treated as a whole system problem in which competence is evaluated from an integrated rather than a reductionist perspective. Current research therefore focuses on how to support and improve human judgement, how to triangulate assessment information meaningfully and how to construct fairness, credibility and defensibility from a systems perspective. But, given the rapid changes in society, education and healthcare, yet another evolution in our thinking about good assessment is likely to lurk around the corner. Keywords  Assessment · History · Programmatic assessment · Workplace based assessment

Introduction This special issue provides a perfect opportunity to reflect on where we are at the moment in health professions education and where we have come from. We would not be exaggerating by claiming that this Journal has played an important role in this history. Right from the start, under the leadership of its founding editor-in-chief, it has contributed to the development of strong research approaches in health professions education research. We must acknowledge as well that although Geoff Norman, as founding editor-in-chief,

* Lambert W. T. Schuwirth [email protected] 1

FHMRI: Prideaux Research in Health Professions Education, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Sturt Road, Bedford Park, South Australia, 5042, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia

2

Department of Educational Development and Research, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands





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L. W. T. Schuwirth, C. P. M. van der Vleuten

came from a quantitative, experimental research tradition, there has always been room in the journal for breadth and research of different ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological backgrounds. This breadth, but with the requirement of scientific rigour, has made the journal one of the important ones in the field. In this paper we want to describe our perspective on the history of assessment in medical education, and it has been an interesting one. It has been ma