Assuring the quality of programmatic assessment: Moving beyond psychometrics

The concept of programmatic assessment in health professions education was introduced in 2005 [1] and is rapidly gaining traction. Its central tenet is appealing: assessing learners longitudinally with a variety of methods that are embedded in the educational process, and that afford both assessment of learning and assessment for learning. Programmatic assessment accommodates both low-stake and high-stake decisions and is reminiscent of what a vocal coach does: he helps to make a singer achieve his or her utmost potential (by giving frequent feedback) but eventually will make a summative decision whether the singer can join the choir or can be the soloist.