What is TEbMP
TEbMP is a fair and valid assessment of a person's ability to use the English language effectively within a biomedical context. In order to be a valid assessment tool, TEbMP evaluates the knowledge and skills employed in authentic situations, as determined by reliable and valid surveys of biomedical English usage. The actual questions in the TEbMP question bank are based on a corpus of essential words and phrases.
As different situations, for example undergraduate education versus clinical practice, require different knowledge and skills, the spectrum which TEbMP evaluates must have both breadth and depth. TEbMP therefore measures biomedical English ability within 5 domains:
1. Basic vocabulary and usage
2. Reading comprehension
3. Written composition
4. Listening comprehension
5. Speaking
These domains are obviously inter-related and there will be a measure of overlap in testing each of these domains. The order in which the domains are listed above does not imply any fixed priority in teaching or testing.
What is the Purpose of TEbMP? |
TEbMP may be used to evaluate the biomedical English ability of applicants to undergraduate and graduate educational programs in the health sciences, biology and related fields. It may also assist licensing bodies and organizations which wish to evaluate candidates for positions in clinical practice, public health, education and health communications. In order to have a spectrum of applications, the results of TEbMP evaluations are expressed in meaningful terms which include raw scores, ability and rankings. There is no predetermined passing mark for any stage of TEbMP, and different institutions may determine the cut-off scores which are appropriate to their purposes. This will be facilitated by the publication of raw scores, ability rankings and question-difficulty ratings for reference cohorts and exams. |
Who "runs" TEbMP? |
TEbMP is administered by a collaboration of interested faculty at universities worldwide. All activities are not-for-profit and any group or person is welcome to contribute to the effort of developing, administering or interpreting examination results.
|
