Feedback Process in The Mini Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-Cex) : an Exploratory Study

In the midst of clinical environment unpredictability, feedback helps students to make the most out of clinical learning opportunities. Mini clinical evaluation exercise (Mini-CEX) is considered to be appropriate for providing feedback to students. This study aims to explore the feedback process within the Mini-CEX at a large Australian medical school. Between year 2011-2012, 23 Mini-CEX sessions, involved 18 final year medical students, were observed, followed by 15-minutes structured interviews. 7 experienced clinical teachers were also interviewed. A questionnaire administered to 274 final year medical students to seek their views on feedback provided in the Mini-CEX. Most feedback has complied with the characteristics of constructive feedback, however the amount of feedback decreased as the quality level of feedback increased. These findings matched students’ perceptions recorded on the questionnaire. The themes derived from the interviews showed that for feedback to be useful, each of feedback process components (feedback provider, types of feedback, feedback recipient and action plans following feedback) need to be attended to. Both tutors and students need to focus on the process of incorporating feedback to inform students’ learning, not only on the feedback characteristics. One of the means to achieve this is by providing reflective feedback where students are considered as active recipients.

Keywords: feedback, Mini-CEX, clinical, assessment, learning.