A Mixed-Design Study on the Effectiveness and Perceptions of Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (DOPS) in Anaesthesiology Postgraduate Education

Assessments of procedural skills within anaesthesia training programme have historically been performed through a combination of retrospective subjective feedback from supervising faculty without specific criteria, self-reported procedure logs, or both.

Formative assessments are used to aid learning and have been described as ‘assessment for learning’. In order to be useful, feedback from formative assessment needs to occur in a timely manner, so that it can influence a trainee’s progress. Traditional thinking has been that feedback should be given as soon as possible, sometimes concurrently during the performance of the procedure.

However, there is recent evidence that feedback after completion of a task is more effective than concurrent feedback, especially for long-term retention of skills.

Formative assessment is usually undertaken during supervised clinical work and so its effectiveness is subject to attributes of the supervisor such as willingness to teach and interpersonal skills.

Our study will help us assess how the DOPS method of WPBA is going to be beneficial in our context and also the feasibility of its application in our clinical practice.