Accuracy of Student Self-Assessment Ability Compared to Their Own Performance in a Problem-Based Learning Medical Program: A Correlation Study

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of self-assessment ability of students enrolled in a Problem-based Learning program.Methods: Seventy students enrolled in their third year of a four-year program were invited to voluntarily participate in the study. Self-assessment questionnaire was used to measure the students' self-assessment ability on two different occasions: 1) prior to standardised oral examination in predicting their performance, and 2) following the examination estimating their performance. The accuracy of the self-assessment was investigated by the relation between self-assessment and performance of the students.Results: Our study showed that self-assessment pre-examination was not accurate compared to performance at the oral examination (r ranging from 0.042 to 0.243).However, accuracy is slightly better when the student self-assesses his performance a posteriori, but the relation stays very low (r ranging from 0.257 to 0.334).Conclusion:According to our results, the students in the third year of a self-directed Problem-based Learning medical four year program demonstrated poor accuracy of the self-assessment when compared to their own performance.