Assessment of Medical Terminology

Abstract

Most medical textbooks teach and assess medical terminology knowledge using ‘a body systems approach’ where vocabulary is categorized and presented according to the major systems of the human body (e.g., the cardiovascular system, the digestive system). Although this gives medical students a comprehensive and medically-oriented coverage of medical terminology, it relies heavily on memory work and does not equip students with the skills to comprehend medical vocabulary that they have never encountered before. A ‘linguistic approach’, on the other hand, relies on lexical analysis where students are taught medical terms through an understanding of the internal structure of medical terms (i.e., morphological structure of medical terms). The approach is strategy-oriented and encourages inductive and interactive learning. This presentation introduces the test designed to assess the medical terminology knowledge of undergraduate medical students following this linguistic approach. This test aims to (1) assess students’ knowledge of words in the word part list given in the English course, and (2) determine if they can transform medical terminology to nonspecialist term and vice versa by breaking down medical terminology to its linguistic components (i.e., root, prefix, suffix). The test given to all students has six sections where students are asked to answer 60 discrete items or text-based items. Test items require students to either provide or define a medical word, provide the correct grammatical form of the words, and identify features of pronunciation such as problematic sounds, syllable, and stress patterns. The test is administered to four groups of medical students divided according to their medical specialization (Nursing, Chinese Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, Pharmacy). Rasch analysis of results show how different groups of students performed on the test, as well as items that students generally found easy and/or difficult. To determine how students answer items, a small group of students were asked to answer a shorter test with different items, and asked to think-aloud while they are doing the test. Students were also interviewed as to their perceptions of this linguistic approach to learning and testing medical terminology.