A study of the Association between the Internal Assessment and the Final Summative Examination Scores in Physiology

The aim of this work was to study how well the internal assessment scores predict success in the final summative examination by comparing the internal assessment scores of students with their scores on the final examination. This study included 3 batches of first year medical students. The ability of internal assessment scores in theory and practical components to predict performance in the final summative examination was examined by computing the correlations of internal assessment scores with the final summative examination scores. Results showed a high positive correlation between internal assessment scores and final summative examination scores in theory as well as practical for all three batches, though the correlation in practical was not as high as in the case of theory. There was a high correlation between internal assessment scores of theory and practical for all three batches. There was also a positive correlation between theory and practical examination scores in final summative examination for all three batches. This finding supports the predictive validity value of our progress examinations.