Advances in Health Sciences Education 6: 121–140, 2001. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 121 Students’ Perceptions of Assessment Practices in a Traditional Medical Curriculum SARI LINDBLOM-YLÄNNE * and KIRSTI LONKA Development of Studies, P.O. Box 3, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland ( * Corresponding author: E-mail: sari.lindblom-ylanne@helsinki.fi) Abstract. This study examines advanced medical students’ perceptions of assessment practices and their ways of studying for examinations as related to their approaches to learning. This study further validates a cluster model obtained in a previous study through medical students’ interviews. In this cluster model students were divided into four groups on the basis of their approaches to learning. The subjects (N = 35) were advanced medical students who volunteered to be interviewed. The interviews focused on learning strategies, study behaviour and perceptions of the learning environment. The results indicated that there were no differences in students’ perceptions of the examination proce- dures. Students in all four groups criticised quite similarly the examination practices. However, the results showed that students in the four groups reported different ways of preparing for examinations and, furthermore, had different views of the most functional ways to study for them. This study brought into light problems that arise in a traditional medical curriculum, particularly concerning traditional assessment practices. Key words: assessment, examinations, learning environment, medical education, study approach Introduction Assessment methods play a major role in education because they strongly guide student learning and are thus sometimes referred to as the ‘hidden curriculum’ (Godfrey, 1995; Van der Vleuten, 1996). Teaching and assessment should be in ‘constructive alignment’, as Biggs (1996) succinctly notes. This means that the basic principle of the learner’s active role in creating meaning should also guide the learning objectives and criteria forming the basis on which student performance is assessed. Thus, traditional ways of assessing learning, such as measuring factual recall, are not satisfactory when problem-solving or application of knowledge is being measured. Assessment criteria should support teachers’ teaching strategies and students’ learning strategies (Brown et al., 1997). Consequently, the criteria should be derived from the learning context. Assessment in higher education has two competing goals: developmental and judgmental (Brown et al., 1997). The purpose of the former is to improve student learning, whereas the latter is concerned with consistency, uniformity and fairness in licencing the student to proceed to the next stage. Often judgmental assessment