College of MedicineMD ProgramCurriculumStudent Assessment PlanProcedures for Review, Challenge, and Appeal of Individual Assessments

Procedures for Review, Challenge, and Appeal of Individual Assessments

Table of Contents

Incident Cards

Incident cards are not specific assessments but are a reporting tool for professionalism lapses and contribute to understanding a student’s competency in professionalism. An isolated minor lapse should not impact a student’s standing nor be reportable. Patterns of concern and major lapses may require intervention. Incident cards will be received through assessment and can be challenged. The outcomes of a challenge include no changes to the report, an addition to the report with a student perspective or adjusted language, or removal of the report altogether. A challenge must be submitted with Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 2 weeks of receiving the notification of the incident card. All major incident cards are reviewed by members of curriculum, assessment, and student affairs and reported to the SEPAC. Any incident cards submitted to the SEPAC will include an opportunity for the student to share their perspective and appeal any adverse action through the SEPAC itself.

Individual Assessments

Pre-clerkship

Workplace-based Assessments (WBAs)

Students may request review with co-course directors and component directors (APM or CBL Directors) to address any concerns. After the review, faculty will make a determination on removal or editing of the assessment and communicate this with the student. Students should utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 2 weeks of the assessment being available to the student to engage in this process.

Individual Question Challenge on Mastery Knowledge Assessments (MKAs)

After an exam, students may challenge the content or validity of MKA questions. This challenge process is meant to allow students to request a formal review of a question by the content expert. To submit a challenge, students must utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 24 hours of the proctored exam review and should not be sent to faculty directly to ensure uniformity in the challenge process. All challenges must include the following information:

  • The question that is being challenged (the first 100 characters of each question can be found on PowerBI)
  • Evidence for why the question is incorrect (to include screen shots of note slides, peer reviewed journal articles, etc.)

Once a challenge is received, the Assistant Dean of Pre-Clerkship-Assessment will de-identify the challenge material and send it to the faculty expert for review. The faculty may elect to do one of three things:

  1. Leave the question as is,
  2. Accept more than one correct answer, or
  3. Remove the question from the exam. It should be noted that if a question is removed, it may negatively affect student scores.

All successful challenges will be communicated with the entire cohort through an E.Flo announcement.

Weekly Knowledge Checks (WKCs)

WKCs are formative exercises that occur weekly in the pre-clerkship. Students are expected to complete the WKCs prior to the next MKA. Question edit suggestions can be sent to medicine.assessment@wsu.edu.

Overall Challenge on MKAs

All overall failures (<70%) for written exams are automatically reviewed before finalizing grades to ensure the standard-setting procedure was performed appropriately.

Challenges to an overall MKA performance are limited to individual question challenges (above) and technical concerns or emergent situations. Students must report any challenges within 1 hour of completion of the exam and prior to release of any score to engage in a challenge of the validity of an MKA. Issues reported directly to the proctor support this process. Students can utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form to engage in this process if they do not feel comfortable reporting an issue to a proctor.

Overall Challenge on Comprehensive Basic Sciences Exams (CBSE)

Challenges are limited to technical concerns or emergent situations that can result in an ability to repeat the attempted exam. Students must report any challenges within 1 hour of completion of the exam and prior to release of any score to engage in a challenge of the validity of a subject exam. Issues reported directly to the proctor support this process. Students can utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form to engage in this process if they did not feel comfortable reporting an issue to a proctor.

Assignments

Course directors, co-directors, and/or assignment leads will review narratives of assignments if there are concerns. Individual rubric elements will typically not be reviewed or changed for formative assignments. Students should utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 2 weeks of the assignment being available to the student to engage in this process.

Clerkship

Clinical Assessments

Students are encouraged to report any learning environment concerns that they fear will impact assessment prior to an assessment itself, if able.

Student disagreement with an assessment or report of feedback that was different verbally than what is in written form is generally not grounds for removal of an assessment.

Clinical assessments include Workplace-based Assessments (WBAs), Clinical Performance Assessments (CPAs), Daily Encounter Cards (DECs), and Interprofessional Attribute Tools (I-PATs). Students may request review with course directors to address any concerns. In the case of a formal challenge, faculty will make a determination on removal or editing of the assessment and communicate this with the student. Students should utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 2 weeks of the assessment being available to the student to engage in this process.

Assignments

Course directors, co-directors and/or assignment leads will review narratives of assignments if there are concerns. Individual rubric elements will typically not be reviewed or changed for formative assignments. Students should utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 2 weeks of the assessment being available to the student to engage in this process.

Oral Exam

Students can request a review and challenge the grading of an oral exam. Assessment requests that course directors record oral exams to support this process, though technological barriers can occur. Students should utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 2 weeks of the assessment being available to the student to engage in this process.

NBME Subject Exam

Challenges are limited to technical concerns or emergent situations. Students must report any challenges within 1 hour of completion of the exam and prior to release of any score to engage in a challenge of the validity of a subject exam. Students can utilize Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form to engage in this process if they did not feel comfortable reporting an issue to a proctor.

Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs)

The OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) is graded using a criterion-referenced system based on clinical skills benchmarks and milestones. A standard-setting procedure is followed prior to the exam that includes the Director of Clinical Skills, the Assistant Deans of the Pre-Clerkship and Clerkship, Vice Chairs, and Regional Associate Deans. These standards define the minimum level of acceptable performance for each station and are used to determine pass/fail outcomes.

Following the completion of the OSCE, a comprehensive review of student performance at each station is conducted before individual scores are released. The Clinical Skills Director, along with a designated team of OSCE contributors, reviews overall exam performance, including:

  • The performance of individual stations
  • The validity and consistency of the scoring tools used

For any student who receives an overall “Fail”, the Director of Clinical Skills performs an additional review of the individual student OSCE performance before it is released. If concerns arise regarding scoring accuracy, the Director of Clinical Skills may designate an individual not involved in the original scoring process to re-score specific stations.

Students who wish to challenge their OSCE score must submit a formal request via Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form within 2 weeks of the scores being posted. The challenge will be reviewed by the Director of Clinical Skills, who will assign an appropriate faculty member (not previously involved in scoring) to conduct an independent review of the relevant OSCE components. The Director of Clinical Skills will notify the student and the Assistant Deans of the Pre-Clerkship and Clerkship of the outcome within 2 weeks of receiving the challenge and will make any necessary score adjustments, if applicable.

Challenges submitted after the 2 week period will not result in score changes but may be considered during future exam quality reviews and station development processes.

Overall Grade Review, Challenge, and Appeal Process

Students have the right to review, challenge or appeal their grade in the event that they feel the performance was based on inaccurate information. If the student is not satisfied with their grade after a course, the student may follow the process below.

Grade Review, Challenge, and Appeal Process for any recommendation of “Fail”

All grades in the pre-clerkship are pass/fail. Some grades in the clerkship phase are pass/fail. All recommended grades of “Fail” will follow the procedure below.

Step 1: Grade Review

Students can request to meet with the Course Director or Co-Directors for a guided review of a grade (this will include a review of the student dashboard and any relevant assessments/examinations).

Step 2: Grade Challenge

All courses recommended for failure will be presented to the SEPAC. Students are able to present information (“a challenge”) to that committee prior to that grade being finalized. The SEPAC then may approve a grade of “Fail” or not approve the grade. If the SEPAC does approve the challenge, the grade of “fail” may be returned to the course directors for re-review – this does not mean that the student will pass the pre-clerkship course or clerkship rotation without additional course requirements or remediation. All students may request to appear at a SEPAC meeting as outlined in the Student Promotion, Dismissal, and Graduation policy. Student affairs can assist with this process.

Step 3: Grade Appeal

If the student still has concerns about their grade following the presentation and review to the SEPAC, the appeal process outlined in the Student Promotion, Dismissal, and Graduation policy may be followed to appeal the grade.

Grade Review, Challenge, and Appeal Process for Tiered Grading in the LIC

Final grades in Year 3 are recommended by the Clinical Competence Panel and reviewed by the Clerkship Co-Directors prior to release to students. Clinical Performance Levels appear on the MSPE, but not the official transcript, and follow the same set standards below. All recommendations for “Fail” should follow the process above and not this process.

Step 1: Grade Review

Students can request to meet with LIC Co-Directors in writing for a guided review of the grade (this will include a review of the student dashboard and any relevant assessments/examinations). This request should highlight the relevant areas of performance.

Step 2: Grade Challenge

If a student wants to challenge a grade, they may submit a grade challenge request within 2 weeks of receiving their final grade by submitting a short-written statement of fact (< 250 words) to the assessment grade challenge form via Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form. The submission should explain why the student believes the final grade should be changed with reference to grading criterion in the assessment package.

The grade challenge will be reviewed by the LIC Co-directors. The LIC Co-Directors may collect additional information (related materials or additional feedback from faculty or clinical teams) to support the review. Grades will be reviewed for quality and validity of the grading decision. If the LIC Co-Directors have a concern about the grade or the grading process, they will contact the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education. The outcome of this discussion will be reported initially to the student within 4 weeks of the final grade challenge request. In some cases, determination of an outcome may require additional information from preceptors. If the process is delayed beyond 4 weeks, it will be communicated in writing to the student.

Step 3: Grade Appeal

If the student has ongoing concerns about their grade following a formal grade challenge, they can submit a grade appeal via Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form. The request must be made within 2 weeks of receiving the final grade challenge decision and should include a response to the outcome of the challenge and any additional information to consider. The Appeals Committee, consisting of the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Medical Education as well as identified Regional Associate Deans (not the student’s) and Vice or Assistant Chairs will meet to review all materials related to the course, the challenge, and the appeal and will make the final determination to retain or revise the grade.

Any grade changes will be communicated to the SEPAC.

Track status within the LIC is not an official grade and not reported outside of the LIC. It is not eligible for Step 2 and 3 above, but students may request to review the status at any time with the LIC Co-Directors.

Grade Review, Challenge, and Appeal Process for Tiered Grading in Year 4 

Final grades in Year 4 are recommended by Year 4 Grading Panels and are reviewed by the Course Directors and Year 4 Co-Directors prior to review by the SEPAC.

Step 1: Grade Review

Students can request to meet with the relevant Y4 Course Director in writing for a guided review of the grade (this will include a review of the student dashboard and any relevant assessments/examinations). This request can be sent to the course director or to medicine.assessment@wsu.edu and should highlight the relevant areas of performance.

Step 2: Grade Challenge

If a student wants to challenge a grade, they may submit a grade challenge request within 2 weeks of receiving their final grade by submitting a short-written statement of fact (< 250 words) to the assessment grade challenge form via Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form. The submission should explain why the student believes the final grade should be changed with reference to criterion outlined in the assessment package.

The grade challenge will be reviewed by the Year 4 Co-directors and Course Director and taken to a Y4 Grading Panel. The Year 4 Co-Directors or Course Director may collect additional information (related materials or additional feedback from faculty or clinical teams) to support the review. Grades will be reviewed for quality and validity of the grading decision. If the Year 4 Co-Directors have a concern about the grade or the grading process, they will contact the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education. The outcome of this discussion will be reported initially to the student within 4 weeks of the final grade challenge request. In some cases, determination of an outcome may require additional information from preceptors. If the process is delayed beyond 4 weeks, it will be communicated in writing to the student.

Step 3: Grade Appeal

If the student still has concerns about their grade following a formal grade challenge, they can submit a grade appeal via Challenge or Appeal of Assessments Form. The request must be made within 2 weeks of receiving the final challenge outcome. All grade challenge decisions should include response to the outcome of the challenge and any additional information to consider. The appeals will first be reviewed by an Appeals Committee, consisting of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education, the Assistant Deans for Clerkships as well as identified Regional Associate Deans. The Appeals Committee will communicate the outcome of the appeal directly to the student.

Students can review their grade at any time, however, please be aware that the grade challenge and appeal process must be completed within the timeframe outlined above.

Mistreatment and Assessment

If a student is concerned about student mistreatment, the concern should be reported through the mistreatment reporting avenues, learn more at Student Mistreatment Incident Management and Learning Environment Committee. Cases of discrimination will be sent to the Office of Compliance and Civil Rights (CCR) to process. If either of these processes reveals that assessments were likely to be impacted by any form of mistreatment, the appropriate office (OSE, OEA, or CCR) will notify the Assessment Unit that assessments should be edited or removed from the student record. Students are not required to report concerns of mistreatment or harassment directly to the Assessment Unit. Members of the Assessment Unit are mandatory reporters for student reports of discrimination or violations of EP15 as per the student mistreatment policy and are here to support students for any concerns of mistreatment. More information can be found in Student Mistreatment Incident Management and Learning Environment Committee within the student handbook.