Factors affecting decision making stages during the assessment of students clinical performance, a cognitive approach

This presentation sheds a light on assessment practices in clinical Settings and focuses on assessors’ modulation of the whole cognitive process. The argument involves discussing critical thinking of assessors before, during, and after the event of assessment. Then, it analyzes a cognitive approach of assessment implied by assessors during students’ performance. Further, it proposes a model with step-by-step approach in decision-making along with different factors, which may strongly influence final grades. Four mainstages were identified for the purpose of analysis, such as pre-decision, driver, primary decision, and communication stages. Possible factors related to the assessment and assessors’ cognition that derived from literature were discussed in terms of the influence on the final decision towards more stringent or lenient decisions, following a temporal sequence for the proposed model events. Finally, both primary and secondary factors involved in each stage were presented.