Evaluation Evolution: Designing Optimal Evaluations to Enhance Learning in Nephrology Fellowship

Evaluations serve as the backbone of any educational program and can be broadly divided into formative and summative eval-uations. Formative evaluations are just in time evaluations focused on informing the learning process, whereas summative evaluations compare fellows to a preset standard to determine their readiness for unsupervised practice. In the nephrology fellowship programs, evaluations assess competence in the framework of ACGME Milestones 2.0. A variety of learning venues, evaluators, and tools should be incorporated into the measurement process. It is important to determine which milestones can be best assessed in each education venue to decrease the burden of assessment fatigue. Additionally, programs can diversify the evaluators to include nurses, medical students, peers, and program coordinators in addition to faculty to provide a well-rounded assessment of the fellows and share the assessment burden. Lastly, the evaluation data should be presented to fellows in a format where it can inform goal setting. The evaluation system needs to evolve along with the changes being made in cur-riculum design. This will help to make fellowship learning effective and efficient. (c) 2022 by the National Kidney Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Evaluations play a crucial role in educational programs, with formative evaluations providing real-time feedback for the learning process and summative evaluations assessing readiness for independent practice. In nephrology fellowship programs, evaluations are based on ACGME Milestones 2.0 framework and should incorporate various learning venues, evaluators, and tools. It is important to assess the relevant milestones in each education venue and diversify evaluators to share the assessment burden. The evaluation data should be presented in a format that informs goal setting, and the evaluation system should evolve with curriculum design changes.