Online versus On-site e-Assessment in Medical Education: are we ready for the change?

We compared two E-assessment platforms and we evaluated the impact of online versus on-site examination by analysing students' outcomes and classifying them into performance groups. Two groups of 480 (G1/2019) and 527 (G2/2020) 2^nd year medical students were included. G1 was assessed by using E-School Exam Module on-site, while G2 used FlexiQuiz assessment platform online. G2 received 3 partial examinations during the semester while G1 was evaluated by o single final exam at the end of the semester. Students were classified in four performance categories as high (8-10, HPG), medium (6-7.99, MPG), low (5-5.99, LPG) and fail (less than 4, FPG) based on final grade. The analysis was applied for both theoretical and practical exams. A significant increase of HPG (79% vs 4% for theory and 42% vs 16% for practice) was noted for G2 compared with G1. MPG remained relatively the same between groups while LPG decreased for G2 compared with G1 (22% vs 1% for theory, 25% vs 4% for practice). The G2-FPG significantly decreased but remained higher for practical exam. HGP, LPG, FPG were strongly influenced by applying different assessment methods while MPG remained similar for G1 and G2. Factors influencing these variations will be discussed here.