Progress testing is a longitudinal assessment method covering the full cognitive content considered pertinent to the curriculum of undergraduate medical education. Several medical schools in the world and in Brazil have been applying this test. The medical school of the State University of Londrina, Brazil, introduced the test in 1998 in order to evaluate the course and the learning performance of the students. The purpose of this paper was to present the implementation process of progress testing as an evaluation method and some of the results observed during this period. Among these results were increasing participation of students in the test; the students showed progress in their overall medical knowledge in each test, however with lower scores than expected in ethics, public health and internal medicine. These results reflect the structure of the curriculum as well as the strong and weak points of the course. It is concluded that progress testing is a good indicator in the self-assessing process but that further studies into techniques for analyzing the results are necessary to be able to determine the cognitive progress of the students during the course.
Evaluation; Educational Measurement; Evaluation, Program; Medical, Education
