Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development (10/09/23) Gutierrez, Marc; Wilson, Kelsey; Bickford, Brant; et al.

Researchers rated the ability of a novel in-training evaluation report (ITER) to improve the quality of narrative evaluations for internal medicine residency program participants. The pre-intervention and post-intervention form arms included 1,468 narrative assessments. Two researchers ultimately assessed 1,363 evaluations, using the Narrative Evaluation Quality Instrument's (NEQI) scale of 0-12, with 803 in the pre-intervention arm and 560 in the post-intervention arm. The results indicated the mean NEQI score for the pre-intervention electronic period was 2.43, while the mean score for the post-intervention paper period was 3.31, with an average 0.88 difference. The pre-intervention and post-intervention periods' median NEQI scores were 0.5 and 3.0, respectively. The 0.3 calculated effect size signaled a medium impact. The authors noted that 367 of 803 submitted pre-intervention period evaluations lacked a narrative assessment, as did 6 of 560 post-intervention period evaluations. The 0.92 intraclass correlation coefficient showed strong agreement among the two raters. "The use of the NEQI will allow us to track the quality of narrative assessments for future interventions and contribute to an iterative process of faculty development and program improvement," the researchers note.

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