Educational Measurement Unit

Purpose & Practice of the Educational Measurement Unit

The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (DGSOM) Evaluations Office was established in 1992 under guidance from the Medical Education Committee (MEC) to provide a centralized evaluation entity that could administer student ratings of curriculum and faculty and manage the security and quality of these data according to university guidelines.

In 2015, the Evaluations Office (2.0) expanded its mission to ensure the highest quality education at DGSOM through the active use of best practices in evaluation and provision of timely feedback to monitor and improve curriculum design, implementation, and program outcomes, reporting directly to the Dean’s Office.

Under current Dean’s Office leadership, the office was reimagined to serve the complex needs of a leading medical school.  The unit features expertise in measurement, from student learning and curricular innovations to faculty performance and learning climate. 

In collaboration with medical education program leadership and following LCME and ACGME guidelines, the Educational Measurement Unit conducts ongoing evaluation of DGSOM education programs, presents findings to internal and external stakeholders, and offers evaluation consultation services to faculty and administration, such as designing evaluation plans, developing program outcomes, logic models, and needs assessments, performing data analysis and visualization, and measuring program effectiveness.

The purpose of a coordinated assessment program is to promote the development and implementation of quality assessment practices for the advancement of medical education at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Medical trainees of all levels at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA are required to participate in a variety of assessment activities, including formative assessment, unit examinations, clinical performance evaluations, and licensing examinations. The institutional assessment tools aimed at measuring trainees' learning outcomes need to be carefully designed and validated so that quality-assured data may be provided for educational decision-making and quality improvement research.

Goals and Objectives

In collaboration with the leadership teams of medical education programs and following the guidelines laid out by LCME standards and ACGME core competencies, the Educational Measurement Unit designs and recommends frameworks for comprehensive learning outcome assessments to assist in the evaluation of the curriculum, academic advising practices, and faculty development programs. The specific objectives include, but are not limited to the following:

• Measurement of learning outcomes across all levels of medical education
• Standard setting for graded assessments
• Design and implementation of program evaluation activities and provision of relevant assessment data
• Partnership with Dean’s Office Leadership in the training of faculty in the development of test items and interpretation of test results
• Partnership with the Student Affairs Office in performance data relevant to student academic advising

Connect with Us

Location: Geffen Hall 200
Email: evaluation@mednet.ucla.edu
US Mailing Location:
UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
University of California, Los Angeles
885 Tiverton Drive, Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90095