Association for Dental Education in Europe

Learning together to improve oral health and quality of life

Performance Assessment of Clinical Skills (PACS): the importance of the examiner.

Wednesday, 20th August 2025 - 11:30 to 13:30
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Timezone: 

Dublin (IST, UTC+1)

Venue: 

Dargan Auditorium. TCDBS

COP
Pre-register as part of your ADEE 2025 meeting registration
Session synopsis: 

This Community of Practice (COP) session will explore challenges associated with Performance Assessment of Clinical Skills (PACS) in dentistry. The session will focus on examiner training, alignment, selection, and post-hoc performance analysis, with an emphasis on shared experience. Participants will engage in collaborative problem-solving, learning from each other's insights and perspectives to enhance their understanding and approach.

Prior to the conference, interested colleagues will be invited to participate in online workshop/s to discuss challenges within practical assessment delivery, examiner training and calibration. Output from these sessions will shape workshop format and content.

During the in-person workshop, participants will be invited to engage in think-pair-share activities related to their challenges with assessor training and PACS. Through sharing of experiences, participants will work together to propose solutions to challenges impacting the validity of PACS. We anticipate workshop participation will encourage collaborative partnerships and training initiatives, forming the foundation for future COP activities

Programme: 

11:30 Introduction: AN introduction to PACS COP Team  

11:35 Overview of issues with Examiners in PACs

11:45 Member contribution 

12:20 Breakout sessions 

12:50 Summary 

Chair: 

Charlotte Emmanuel

Senior Clinical Lecturer/Honorary Consultant in Oral Surgery. Director of Assessment and Feedback
Cardiff University, UK

Charlotte began her journey educating dental students, both clinical and didactic teaching in oral surgery in 2004.  During this time, she has led and developed a number of assessments both for undergraduate and postgraduate students. She was appointed to the role of Director of Assessment and Feedback in 2019 and was able to develop new methods for assessments, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in dentistry and dental therapy and hygiene. Covid-19 highlighted and pushed the development of methods to record and assess student’s capabilities to ensure Cardiff University could demonstrate the safe beginner, whereby she introduced a capability portfolio to record student clinical progress, this also enabled her to review current work-based assessments to demonstrate competency in key areas.

Sarah Rolland

Senior Lecturer / Honorary Consultant in Orthodontics. Director of Assessment.
Newcastle University, UK

Sarah Rolland has worked in dental education for over 20 years, during which time she has fostered an interest in dental assessment and held the position of Director of Assessment at Newcastle Dental School (UK) for the last 6 years.  Sarah has developed and run the year 3 dental student OSCE examination, updating standard setting methods and moving to a system of sequential testing. She has been involved in the development of a new final year MOSLER examination (Multiple Observed Structured Long Examination Record), a practical assessment method that is used in medicine, but has not been widely used in dental education. Hugely enthusiastic for dental assessment, with a passion for ensuring assessments are valid, reliable and authentic Sarah enjoys working with others and looks forward to developing collaborative learning around the important and evolving area of practical assessments in dental education.

Clare McNally

University of Melbourne, Australia
Academic Lead for Assessment and Evaluation.

Clare McNally is an Associate Professor of Oral Health and the Academic Lead for Assessment and Evaluation at the Melbourne Dental School. Clare is a change agent, responsible for assessment reform as part of the MDS25 curriculum redesign.

By developing a programmatic approach to assessment and introducing an entrustable professional activity framework, Clare will ensure the Melbourne Dental School (MDS) is a global leader in dental education and assessment.
Clare is also the Bachelor of Oral Health final year coordinator. This is a work-integrated learning (WIL) year where students are out on clinical placements. Clare is focused on ensuring they remain connected as a community of learners despite not being on-site together at the University.
Clare's PhD (Medicine) at the University of Adelaide explored the relationship between oral health and systemic health in hospitalised older people. She currently works for Dental Health Services Victoria in the Oral Medicine Department helping patients with significant mucosal diseases prevent common dental conditions. She will be expanding her research in this area in 2024.

Monica Ramzy

Clinical Lecturer
University of Melbourne, Australia

Monica is a Clinical Lecturer at the Melbourne Dental School where she teaches into both the simulation and clinical components of the Bachelor of Oral Health, she also co-coordinates the final year of the program and is a member of the Assessment and Evaluation sub-committee focusing on the design and delivery of practical assessments. In 2024, Monica completed her Masters of Clinical Education through the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. In the final year of her masters, she completed her research project titled the Barriers and Enablers to Implementing Entrustable Professional Activities in Dental Education and has since adopted her research findings to support the introduction of an Enstrustable Professional Activity framework at the Melbourne Dental School.

Learning Outcomes: 

During the session, delegates will:

1. Understand and describe the challenges related to examiner performance, selection and alignment in marking.

2. Explain and provide examples of examiner calibration methods, moderation, and training, demonstrating how these processes support the development of fair and consistent assessment practices.

3. Understand and employ methods for analysing examiner performance post-hoc to inform moderation and training programs.

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