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Calibrate for Students

Calibrate formative assessments help you build higher-order thinking skills and identify true knowledge gaps.

Questions are multiple-choice, board-style vignettes with a clinical focus–the kind of questions you’ll be asked on rounds. You’ll rate your certainty for each answer to improve the depth of your results, helping you understand where your certainty and accuracy are misaligned. There are no scores-Calibrate is designed for your learning.

Accessing Calibrate

Calibrate is assigned by the faculty or administrators at your school who will set a window of time for when your assessment must be completed.

When the window is open, you will be notified by email. Click on the link in the email, or sign in to your Aquifer account to take your assessment.

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Taking the assessment

Things to know

  • Your assessment has a time limit. Be sure to set aside time to complete the assessment.
    • You can pause the assessment for up to 20 minutes if needed.
  • You won’t be able to go back and review your answers. You’ll need to commit to a decision and move on.
  • Rate your certainty to identify true knowledge gaps. Take the time to accurately rate your certainty to help you make the most of your results.
  • You’ll see the correct answer and explanation after each question. Note that you won’t be able to view this information later, so take the time you need. Your time limit allows a generous amount of time for this.
  • Each question relates to an Aquifer case. You can add the related case to your to-dos to help you fill the gaps you identify.
    • Before starting your assessment, you can opt to automatically add all related cases for questions you got wrong to your to-do list.
    • You can also opt to add cases on your own as you go through your results.

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After completing your assessment, you have immediate access to your results. 

Calibrate Results

Calibrate provides reports that give you what you need to create efficient study plans, track your progress, target learning before an end-of-course exam, and have productive conversations with your faculty to guide your learning.

Accessing Your Results

At the conclusion of your Calibrate assessment, you will be taken directly to your results. To access your Calibrate reports later, click on “Dashboard” in the side navigation. Scroll down to the Calibrate Summary card and click on the “Results” link for the assessment you want to view. You can also access results from the Assessment section of your Aquifer account.

Results Overview

Calibrate assessments are focused on formative assessment, and do not include a score.

The Results Overview tab allows you to easily gauge your overall performance. The red, yellow, or green block indicates where you performed compared to peers who take the same assessment at the same time during their clerkship or rotation (early or late). This metric considers accuracy, certainty, and efficiency.

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If you have taken both an early and late assessment in the same discipline, both results will appear here to show your progress when you view late assessment results.

Details & To-do Review Tab

The next tab calibrates your knowledge and certainty to help you identify where your knowledge and certainty were aligned – or misaligned.

Clinical Learning Calibration

Each item you complete is categorized by Clinical Learning Calibration. This metric considers accuracy, certainty, and efficiency. The graph at the top of the page allows you to easily see how closely aligned your accuracy and certainty are - and how your performance compares to your peers.

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Below, the Item Details section shows item level results that include learning objectives and teaching points. Sorting by clinical learning calibration allows you to quickly zero in on trouble spots. Each item is linked to a related case, proving a clear and trusted next step to fill knowledge gaps in full clinical context. You can see if an item is already assigned to you or on your to-do list.

Sort by body system or clinical focus to identify trends in your learning to help hone your study plans.

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Summary

The Summary tab examines your performance by body system and clinical focus, showing average accuracy and clinical learning calibration data to help you easily identify trends in your learning, or areas of accuracy and certainty misalignment.

The Clinical Learning Calibration column acts like a heat map, allowing you to easily scan for trouble areas (in cranberry) vs areas of strength (in dark green).

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Learning Plan

The Learning Plan tab allows you to reflect on your learning and create an action plan you can share with your faculty or coach.

The Learning Plan displays a review of your to-do list for all cases related to this assessment. 

Next, you can list the main insights you have gained from analyzing your results, or considering your performance throughout your course or rotation. You can ask yourself what your next steps will be to help you progress in the areas in which you struggled and how you will keep on track.

Section three allows you to record any other thoughts or questions you want to remember for your plan or to discuss with a coach or faculty member.

You can share your plan and results with a coach or anyone who can help you refine and implement your plan.

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