In a for profit setting when those who do the work are the very same people/institutions who measure the quality of that work (in this case schools which both teach something and then measure how well that something was taught), it’s not at all uncommon that the measuring methodology gets changed over time to yield better results for the same work rather than the work changing to improve the results in the existing measurement methodology.
This is why independent measuring of results is a thing.
In this case to know for sure we would have to get the opinions of existing medical practicioners who have worked side by side with recent graduates from these and other schools - if they tend to see graduates from these schools as coming in worse prepared than those from other schools, then this outcome we saw is probably due to the kind of situation I described above.
Framed differently, it could mean the new exam is a poor indicator of readiness to practice medicine.
Exactly. Impossible to tell from this article alone.
It could be either way.
In a for profit setting when those who do the work are the very same people/institutions who measure the quality of that work (in this case schools which both teach something and then measure how well that something was taught), it’s not at all uncommon that the measuring methodology gets changed over time to yield better results for the same work rather than the work changing to improve the results in the existing measurement methodology.
This is why independent measuring of results is a thing.
In this case to know for sure we would have to get the opinions of existing medical practicioners who have worked side by side with recent graduates from these and other schools - if they tend to see graduates from these schools as coming in worse prepared than those from other schools, then this outcome we saw is probably due to the kind of situation I described above.