A Case for Caution: Chart-Stimulated Recall

CSR is a hybrid assessment format that combines chart review and an oral examination, with both based on a clinician's documented patient encounter. Faculty or the learner selects the clinical chart for a learner's patient to be used as a stimulus for questioning.^8–16  Using the learner's own clinical chart situates the examination within a realistic context, adding to the authenticity and value of the exercise.¹⁷  Through a series of probing questions designed to inquire into the learner's clinical decision-making skills, the examinee is asked to reflect on and explain his or her rationale for clinical decisions. CSR has been used extensively in the United Kingdom and in Canada for the assessment of practicing physicians; in the United States it is predominantly used to assess trainees.

A variety of scoring forms have been developed for CSR, ranging from checklists with comment boxes to ordinal rating scales.^11,18,19  Feedback usually is given to the learner at the end of the encounter^11,20  and may include action plans to improve future clinical decision making.^{11,18,20–22}  Despite evidence to support the use of CSR in assessing the competence of practicing physicians, its use for certification of physicians has diminished due to practical concerns, such as cost, time, and the need for experienced assessors.^10,11,16,23 

In the context of the new accreditation system and the milestones, CSR provides 2 meaningful contributions to the assessment of residents. First, inquiry focused on the specific case allows assessment of the learner's clinical decision making in a controlled, yet authentic, setting.²⁴  Second, the formative feedback that a learner receives on a one-to-one basis provides individualized learning opportunities. CSR can fill a gap in the systematic assessment of clinical decision making; thus, a critical analysis of this assessment method is warranted.

Construct underrepresentation refers to the incorrect interpretation of test results based on inadequate sampling of that which is being measured.²⁵  Examples of construct underrepresentation issues as they relate to CSR are outlined in the table. Construct underrepresentation is common in all clinical performance assessments,²⁶  and may be overcome by increasing the representativeness of cases relative to an assessment blueprint.²⁷  However, simply administering larger numbers of CSR sessions may not be feasible due to practical limitations. For example, if an average-sized internal medicine residency program has 64 residents who are examined 3 times a year with 20-minute encounters, then administering CSR will require approximately 64 hours of personnel time annually, excluding time for preparation and feedback.

Case difficulty may additionally contribute to construct underrepresentation. Selection of straightforward cases that pose minimal challenges to clinical decision making, or complex cases selected for the purposes of receiving corrective instruction, may result in higher or lower ratings.

The format of the examination may also contribute to construct underrepresentation. Although open-ended questions provide evaluators some autonomy to probe examinees, such questions are also subject to interpretation, resulting in potential discrepancies between test administrations.^28,29  In addition, there is considerable variation in available rating instruments and a paucity of recommendations for how to conduct rater training. There are no CSR rating instruments with validity evidence to use for generating scores in a milestone framework. Thus, this limits the ability of CCCs to interpret the results in the context of milestone-based assessments.

Construct irrelevant variance refers to external factors that contribute to systematic error of a measurement. While some construct irrelevant variance is unavoidable in any workplace-based assessments, CSR appears to be more prone to such errors because of the interactive nature of the examination. In particular, verbal and nonverbal communication may affect assessor scoring.³⁰  For example, a non–native English-speaking resident may struggle to answer a question rapidly because of language challenges. An evaluator may misinterpret this delay as an indication of weak clinical decision-making skills.^28,31,32  Furthermore, styles of questioning vary between evaluators. Learners may view some styles as overly aggressive, leading to heightened anxiety and nervous behaviors.^33–35  Finally, an evaluator may harbor subconscious biases toward the learner based on age, sex, or ethnicity, among others.

Evaluators' cognitive biases and clinical knowledge may affect both administration of the CSR and examination scoring.^36,37  Evaluators must have high levels of competence and familiarity with the clinical subject matter. Moreover, the evaluator's area of clinical expertise may alter the examination. For example, when faced with a case of dyspnea, a cardiologist may gravitate toward a diagnosis of congestive heart failure and lead the questioning in this direction, while a pulmonologist may gravitate toward emphysema. Therefore, it is possible that raters' markings of the learner are influenced by a bias toward a particular diagnosis.

The reliance on chart documentation creates another potential source of construct irrelevant variance. Poor chart documentation may divert an evaluator's attention away from clinical decision making and toward clinical documentation, effectively converting CSR into an assessment of the resident's documentation skills.

The various threats to validity we have described prevent the use of CSR as a single assessment measure for high-stakes summative assessment decisions. However, CSR can play a useful role as part of multiple sources of assessment for CCC decisions regarding resident performance. CSR's contribution, by facilitating the assessment of learners' clinical decision-making skills and allowing the provision of individualized feedback, is important and may not be captured in other assessment methods. CSRs are interactive, decoupled from the daily time pressures of clinical care, allowing for structured reflection on one's practice. Furthermore, CSR provides a venue for trainees to receive individualized face-to-face instruction, feedback, and assessment from an experienced clinician. In order to fully realize the potential of CSR, it is essential to pay close attention to the development of the instrument, the training of evaluators, and the preparation of examinees.³⁸ 

An important step toward improving the quality of CSR assessment is robust faculty development in 2 areas: (1) how to conduct the examination, and (2) how to select the content to be examined. To mitigate rater (evaluator) cognitive errors, faculty development should include measures to ensure that raters' clinical knowledge is up-to-date. Recommendations for future research to enhance the quality of CSR are displayed in the box.

CSR is a promising assessment method that provides important feedback to learners and can inform CCC deliberations, yet additional research is needed before it can be used for summative assessments in GME. Clarity and recommendations for mitigating threats to the validity of CSR are still largely lacking—answers to these challenges will help health profession educators determine how CSR should fit into an assessment system in the new accreditation system and its relative benefit to opportunity cost with respect to other assessment methods. Faculty rater development for CSR assessment is an important element of improving the validity and utility of this tool.