Measuring what matters: Decoding the long-term impact of assessment methods in medical education

In the field of delivery of medical education, assessment plays a pivotal role in measuring attainment of the student learning outcome. However, we must acknowledge that more often than not, assessment methods have been employed to predominantly measure short-term outcomes. Nevertheless, with the passage of time, medical educators have realized that we must also aim to assess the long-term impact of educational strategies, including assessment methods, in facilitating long-term learning and skill development among medical students. Evaluating the long-term impact of assessment methods has gradually gained importance owing to multiple reasons, such as we can measure the impact of assessment methods in contributing toward the acquisition and retention of knowledge and skills over an extended period of time. In conclusion, the process of evaluating the long-term impact of assessment methods is extremely crucial to gain an understanding of their effectiveness in promoting lasting learning and skill development. In fact, the evaluation findings are expected to provide valuable information in the domains of knowledge retention, skill application, critical thinking, and continuous learning and thereby provide adequate evidence for policymakers to bring about timely and appropriate modifications in the curriculum to ensure the attainment of learning outcomes.