Evaluation of Psychomotor Skill Assessment

This Semester-In-Residence Project was conducted at Pima Medical Institute (PMI) in San Marcos California for use within the Veterinary Technician Program. The goal of this project was to establish the need to implement standardized criteria for evaluation of instructor assessment of psychomotor skills. In order to do so, four psychomotor skills were chosen to be independently assessed by five instructors within the Veterinary Program at PMI’s San Marcos, CA campus. The skills assessed were 1) aseptic closed gloving technique, 2) intravenous (IV) catheter placement, 3) K9 intravenous injection, and 4) K9 intramuscular injection. Instructors were asked to virtually assess student performance from a prescreened list of five videos for each psychomotor skill, providing a pass or fail grade. Instructors were also asked to provide comments as to their reasoning for a particular grade. The pass or fail score and comments from each evaluator were then compared to assess continuity across instructors within the same institution. Results from the study demonstrated a lack of continuity between instructors across multiple videos. Statistical analysis using a chi square (χ2) test for each of the psychomotor skills determined a significant difference between the instructor’s assessment. This ultimately means some students might earn a passing mark on a psychomotor skill per one instructor and fail based on the score of another evaluator. However, there was similarity within instructor comments as to a particular reason for either passing or failing a student. For example, a student’s ability to maintain sterility or use of proper technique, etc. Students in the program must successfully complete all required psychomotor skills to use them in a real- world clinical setting as an entry level veterinary technician. Discrepancies between individual instructor evaluation of psychomotor skills must be resolved at the level of the evaluator. The importance of this data relates to students entering clinical settings with insufficient technical skills and therefore compromising patient safety. All medical professionals, regardless of profession, are expected to uphold the highest standards of patient care and safety. Inconsistencies across instructor assessment of required program psychomotor skills ultimately lowers this threshold, striking a need to standardize assessment methods. It is recommended that PMI San Marcos’s veterinary program rewrite all rubrics to include specific procedural steps to improve instructor assessment continuity. The rubrics should also convert the current pass or fail grading system to a more streamline system that includes categories in which instructors can score a student based upon the comprehension and success of attempt. Another recommendation of this study is to ensure that the newly formatted rubrics are written by subject matter experts that have a minimum of five years’ experience in a hospital setting and licensure as a Registered Veterinary Technician (RVT) or Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM). Further studies should be conducted across other PMI locations and programs to compare evaluator continuity.