The Script Concordance test: a tool to assess the reflective clinician

Abstract

Background: The Script Concordance (SC) test is a new assessment tool. It is designed to probe whether knowledge of examinees is efficiently organized for clinical actions. That kind of organization of knowledge is named a script. The SC test places examinees in written, but authentic, clinical situations in which they must interpret data to make decisions.

Purpose: The SC test is designed to measure the degree of concordance that exists between examinees' scripts and scripts of a panel of experts. The objective of this article is to provide interested educators with the practical "how to" information needed to build and use an SC test.

Methods: The theoretical background of the SC test is described. The principles of construction of an SC test are presented, including the writing of clinical cases, the choice of item format, the validation of the test, and the elaboration of the scoring system.

Results: A series of studies have shown that the SC test has interesting psychometric properties, in terms of reliability, face validity, and construct validity. Results from these studies are succinctly presented and commented.

Conclusion: The SC test is a simple and direct approach to testing organization and use of knowledge. It has the strong advantage for a testing method of being relatively easy to construct and use and to be machine-scorable. It can be either paper- or computer-based and can be used in undergraduate, postgraduate, or continuing medical education.