This article was originally posted in our June 2017 Newsletter, by Doug Smith, CEO, Medical Educator

When students select and submit feedback, it is sent to the teacher(s) associated with the class, as well as, staff at Platinum Educational Group. It is important to remember to avoid the use of any vulgarities or profanities as this is a violation of the terms of service and will likely result in the termination of the use of this program.

This option was created by the developers of the program for two main reasons. First, feedback provides the authors/owners of the item with corrective information in areas such as typos or new updates to content. The author/owners do look at each item submitted, which is typically well over 200 items per day, but rarely will we comment to the person submitting the feedback. We absolutely appreciate corrective feedback for our questions.

Second, feedback assists the instructor to know what the student was thinking when answering the question. Indicating what was selected and why gives some excellent insight for the instructor to provide useful feedback. Blank responses, simple one and two letter responses, or references to the World Trade Federation (WTF), does not really provide the instructor with any real useful information.

Some individuals and programs use feedback to obtain the answers to the questions. In the linear portion of the program (the non-adaptive tests) this can be more easily accomplished by selecting level 4 feedback as an option for the class. For the computer adaptive testing (CAT) portion of our platform, the intent is more summative than formative. It is designed to see if you are ready for the Registry or other certification process. It is not designed to instruct, so receiving which questions you missed and what the correct answers are is not as effective. However, the thought-process feedback you submit on the adaptive questions will better assist your instructor in helping you understand what the question is looking for and where you may have misinterpreted the question or choices.

We hope this clears up any questions or confusion about our feedback process and why it is in place. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. We would be more than happy to provide further details!