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Outcome based or competency based education (OBE) is so firmly established in undergraduate medical education that it might not seem necessary to ask why it was included in recommendations for the future, like the Flexner centenary report. Uncritical acceptance may not, however, deliver its greatest benefits. Our aim was to explore the underpinnings of OBE: its historical origins, theoretical basis, and empirical evidence of its effects in order to answer the question: How can predetermined learning outcomes influence undergraduate medical education? This literature review had three components: A review of historical landmarks in the evolution of OBE; a review of conceptual frameworks and theories; and a systematic review of empirical publications from 1999 to 2010 that reported data concerning the effects of learning outcomes on undergraduate medical education. OBE had its origins in behaviourist theories of learning. It is tightly linked to the assessment and regulation of proficiency, but less clearly linked to teaching and learning activities. Over time, there have been cycles of advocacy for, then criticism of, OBE. A recurring critique concerns the place of complex personal and professional attributes as “competencies”. OBE has been adopted by consensus in the face of weak empirical evidence. OBE, which has been advocated for over 50 years, can contribute usefully to defining requisite knowledge and skills, and blueprinting assessments. Its applicability to more complex aspects of clinical performance is not clear. OBE, we conclude, provides a valuable approach to some, but not all, important aspects of undergraduate medical education.

Background Since 2021, the prevention and control of the coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic has been normalized. However, considering the high density of students and the potential for epidemic relapse, our medical morphological teaching team established a novel blended learning mode with mainly offline teaching in the general sections and blend learning in systematic sections. Specifically, this study sought to improve the teaching quality of the two courses of “Histology and Embryology” and “Pathology”, and lay a solid foundation for clinical medical undergraduates to learn medical courses well in the future. Methods In the Spring 2021 semester, two classes from the Class of 2019 and two classes from the Class of 2020 were randomly selected as the intervention groups, to carry out blended learning of “Histology and Embryology”, and “Pathology”, respectively. Meanwhile, four parallel classes were randomly selected as control groups to carry out completely traditional offline teaching. The blended learning was based on outcome-based education concepts and used small private online courses from the “Xuexi Tong” (Century Superstar Information Technology Development Co., Ltd., Beijing) platform. In the theory class, case-based learning following a self-designed P-C-P-E-S-E (Pre-class-Case-Problem-Expansion-Summary-Expansion) teaching sequence was implemented. In the experimental class, a virtual digital platform with flipped classroom learning was integrated. Results Both teaching satisfaction and students’ scores were found to be significantly greater in the intervention group than in the control group. Furthermore, the intervention group also effectively surpassed the control group in terms of students’ comprehensive abilities such as drawing, scientific research, participating in competitions, forensic case analysis, and so on. Conclusion Our novel blended learning approach strengthened the communication between teachers and students, obviously improved students’ self-directed learning abilities, and finally achieved the purpose of improving the comprehensive abilities of students. This mode is suited for the post-epidemic era and future variable environments. It also has substantial promotional instructive modeling value. Clinical trial registration Not applicable.

Background Despite the widespread use of portfolios in medical education, their outcomes remain variable. This study evaluated students’ perceptions of portfolios at an institution that recently adopted an outcome-based curriculum. Methods This descriptive cross-sectional study involved 4th, 5th, and 6th -year medical students ( n  = 94; response rate = 64.8%) at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, during the 2023–2024 academic year. A 13-item Likert-type questionnaire assessed students’ portfolio perceptions across five domains: design, feedback and reflection, benefits in assessment, openness to their broader use in the college, and usefulness. Students’ Grade Point Average (GPA) was also recorded as an index of academic performance. Data were analyzed quantitatively; results were expressed as frequencies, means, medians, and percentages. Correlation analyses were conducted to explore the relationships between overall portfolio perception and other measured domains. Results Ninety four students participated in this study. Only 48.9% of students found portfolios useful, with neutral average score of 3.3 ± 1.4 on the Likert scale and 5.66 ± 2.7 on the visual scale. Fewer than half reported positive perceptions across the five assessed domains. Differences in perceptions across academic levels were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test which revealed statistically significant differences ( p  < 0.05). Post-hoc pairwise comparisons using the Mann-Whitney U test showed that fourth-year students had significantly higher perception scores than both fifth- and sixth-year students ( p  < 0.05). Although perceptions improved slightly in the sixth year, these differences were not statistically significant. Strong positive correlations were observed among the survey variables ( p  < 0.001), but no significant correlations were found between portfolio perceptions and academic performance ( p  > 0.05). Conclusion The transition to outcome-based education may be associated with poor portfolio perceptions. Adjusting workload, enhancing feedback, and integrating portfolios into the curriculum may improve portfolio acceptability.

Background Medical education has predominantly adhered to a process-based education model. Recently, outcome-based education (OBE) has emerged as a dominant pedagogical framework, facilitating simultaneous acquisition of theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and clinical experience. In 2020, our medical school implemented a new curriculum designed to integrate clinical skills training and experiential learning with foundational knowledge from the first year. Herein, we evaluated whether the clinical competencies of New Curriculum Students (NCS) are superior to the clinical competencies of Traditional Curriculum Students (TCS). Specifically, we clarified how self-assessment scores related to competencies in “Professional practice skills” evolved over time, and analyzed the longitudinal trends in self-assessment scores. Methods We included TCS enrolled between 2016 and 2019, and NCS enrolled between 2020 and 2023. Self-assessment of students’ competencies in “Professional practice skills,” a core component of our institution’s competency framework, was conducted by online survey. Competency levels were categorized into Levels A, B, and C. Results The self-assessment scores of NCS were significantly higher than those of TCS across most competency domains of “Professional practice skills.” The “Medical interview and physical examination” competency revealed that first-year NCS achieved scores equivalent to those of fourth-year TCS. These scores were either maintained or improved as students progressed in years. In the “Clinical skills” competency, NCS outperformed TCS at all levels from the first to the third year, and at Level A in the fourth year. In the “Medical record charting” competency, NCS achieved significantly higher scores than TCS across all levels during the first and second years. Discussion The early acquisition of clinical skills and exposure to clinical practice enabled students to consistently maintain high self-assessment scores. A curriculum design aligned with OBE appears to foster a heightened sense of self-efficacy among students. This approach is anticipated to facilitate a seamless transition into clinical responsibilities as future physicians.

Are the ways of engaging with the world that students develop through higher education particular to bodies of knowledge they study? In this article, we examine how students’ accounts of the discipline of chemistry in England and South Africa changed over the three years of their undergraduate degrees. Based on a longitudinal phenomenographic analysis of 105 interviews with 33 chemistry students over the course of their undergraduate degrees in four institutions, we constituted five qualitatively different ways of describing chemistry. These ranged from chemistry as something that happens when things are mixed in a laboratory to a more inclusive account that described chemistry as being able to explain molecular interactions in unfamiliar environments. Most students expressed more inclusive accounts of chemistry by the end of their degrees and the level of change appeared to be related to their educational experiences. In contrast to approaches that emphasise the generic student outcomes from higher education, these findings highlight the importance of recognising the distinctive outcomes that students gain from their engagement with particular bodies of disciplinary knowledge. It further highlights the importance of students understanding their degrees as an educational experience that requires them to commit to engaging with these bodies of knowledge.

Background There is little evidence regarding the comparative quality of abstracts and articles in medical education research. The Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI), which was developed to evaluate the quality of reporting in medical education, has strong validity evidence for content, internal structure, and relationships to other variables. We used the MERSQI to compare the quality of reporting for conference abstracts, journal abstracts, and published articles. Methods This is a retrospective study of all 46 medical education research abstracts submitted to the Society of General Internal Medicine 2009 Annual Meeting that were subsequently published in a peer-reviewed journal. We compared MERSQI scores of the abstracts with scores for their corresponding published journal abstracts and articles. Comparisons were performed using the signed rank test. Results Overall MERSQI scores increased significantly for published articles compared with conference abstracts (11.33 vs 9.67; P  < .001) and journal abstracts (11.33 vs 9.96; P  < .001). Regarding MERSQI subscales, published articles had higher MERSQI scores than conference abstracts in the domains of sampling (1.59 vs 1.34; P  = .006), data analysis (3.00 vs 2.43; P  < .001), and validity of evaluation instrument (1.04 vs 0.28; P  < .001). Published articles also had higher MERSQI scores than journal abstracts in the domains of data analysis (3.00 vs 2.70; P  = .004) and validity of evaluation instrument (1.04 vs 0.26; P  < .001). Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare the quality of medical education abstracts and journal articles using the MERSQI. Overall, the quality of articles was greater than that of abstracts. However, there were no significant differences between abstracts and articles for the domains of study design and outcomes, which indicates that these MERSQI elements may be applicable to abstracts. Findings also suggest that abstract quality is generally preserved from original presentation to publication.

The study investigates university instructors’ perceptions of their institution’s readiness to implement an outcome-based education (OBE) curriculum in Bangladesh. It employs a qualitative methodology and case study approach, gathering information from local universities via interviews and questionnaires. The findings paint a complicated picture of educators’ hope and fear, as they realize OBE’s potential to greatly improve student learning outcomes. However, they also see a considerable gap in their thorough grasp and practical application of OBE principles. The study finds five major difficulties in the proper deployment of OBE. These include limited professional development opportunities, insufficient resources, and a lack of institutional support. Teachers report feeling unprepared to design and evaluate OBE curricula, citing the need for more comprehensive training and clearer guidelines. Furthermore, the change from a traditional content-based curriculum to an outcome-based framework has logistical and pedagogical obstacles that necessitate significant adjustment. The study indicates that, with the proper assistance, implementing OBE in Bangladeshi institutions is both doable and potentially transformational. It highlights the necessity of educators’ ongoing professional growth, sufficient resource allocation, and strong institutional support systems. By tackling these difficulties and capitalizing on OBE’s potential benefits, Bangladeshi universities can improve higher education quality and better equip students for the modern workforce. The study emphasizes the significance of a collaborative effort between educational policymakers, institutional leaders, and instructors to ease the transition to OBE. This study contributes to the greater discourse on educational reform in developing nations by providing insights and recommendations that are relevant to similar contexts globally.

Since education is a major step toward long-term human capital development, it is assumed that facility in the use of information and communication technology (ICT), which can help complement, enrich, and transform education, should be promoted among students. However, does a higher level of ICT familiarity always help promote learning skills and educational outcome? This empirical research paper investigates the impacts of ICT familiarity on educational outcomes in developing countries where access to ICT infrastructure is limited. Using Thailand as a case study of a developing country, a nationally representative survey of 8249 students from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Thailand was analyzed. Our results show that using ICT for educational proposes can help improve Thai students’ PISA scores. However, using ICT that is not tailored to educational proposes is found to have an insignificant effect on educational outcomes. This result supports government, related agencies, and families in their efforts to foster children’s use of ICT to enhance their education, but suggests limiting such usage for non-educational proposes.

The digital divide has loomed as a public policy issue for over a decade. Yet, a theoretical account for the effects of the digital divide is currently lacking. This study examines three levels of the digital divide. The digital access divide (the first-level digital divide) is the inequality of access to information technology (IT) in homes and schools. The digital capability divide (the second-level digital divide) is the inequality of the capability to exploit IT arising from the first-level digital divide and other contextual factors. The digital outcome divide (the third-level digital divide) is the inequality of outcomes (e.g., learning and productivity) of exploiting IT arising from the second-level digital divide and other contextual factors. Drawing on social cognitive theory and computer self-efficacy literature, we developed a model to show how the digital access divide affects the digital capability divide and the digital outcome divide among students. The digital access divide focuses on computer ownership and usage in homes and schools. The digital capability divide and the digital outcome divide focus on computer self-efficacy and learning outcomes, respectively. This model was tested using data collected from over 4,000 students in Singapore. The results generate insights into the relationships among the three levels of the digital divide and provide a theoretical account for the effects of the digital divide. While school computing environments help to increase computer self-efficacy for all students, these factors do not eliminate knowledge the gap between students with and without home computers. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The model of outcome-based education is based on achieving attainments at the end of each course by the students in any undergraduate or postgraduate program. It was implemented in all technical institutions of India as per the guidelines of All India Council for Technical Education, India. The attainments are calculated by deploying some direct and indirect tools. This include courses results, placements, projects and various surveys like alumni, employer etc. The paper discusses the attainment of Program Educational Objectives and Program Outcomes for any undergraduate or postgraduate program. In outcome-based education, certain targets are to be set on the basis of previous year performance of students and these targets are achieved in the form of attainments. In this research, a comparative study of last three batches of a postgraduate course is done in the form of attainments.