For many years, medical students at the University of Sydney undertook their clinical clerkships in traditional metropolitan teaching hospitals, which were regarded as the "gold standard" for clinical training. In 2001 the university established a rural clinical school at which increasing numbers of students now complete a significant…

Teachers' approaches to teaching may influence the way they interpret and respond to student evaluations. In this article we explore the relationship between teachers' approaches to teaching and responses to qualitative student feedback in a problem-based medical program. We asked all lecturers and theme session presenters in 2003 who had received…

Small tutorial groups in higher education are often composed without regard to students' gender or broad knowledge background, for example, yet research indicates that composing groups on the basis of gender and prior qualifications may have significant effects on assessment outcomes. Previous studies have also investigated the effects of…

Describes a student-centered, open evaluation system used in the University of Sydney's problem-based medical program. Describes how quantitative and qualitative student feedback is collected for individuals, groups, and years, and how the feedback is managed to effectively support improvement in course quality. (EV)