2026 Session Design Submissions

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Workshop Description:
As Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) become an integral part of workplace-based assessment in surgical specialties, faculty and clinical competency committee members increasingly face the challenge of synthesizing complex EPA data into transparent and fair entrustment decisions, both formative and summative. Traditional approaches often lack clear links between overall scores and decision-making. This interactive workshop will guide participants through a framework and associated tools in a grounded an approachable way, drawing on the latest scholarship in educational measurement and EPAs.

Workshop Structure:

1. Foundations and Challenges:
   The session will begin with small-group icebreakers to surface participants’ current practices and pain points in translating EPA ratings into entrustment decisions. Using illustrative cases, the facilitators will highlight common pitfalls and outline the need for approaches that both synthesize and retain the evidentiary value of each assessment.
2. Evidentiary Reasoning and Evidence Tables:
   The core didactic portion will break down complex concepts with accessible language and hands-on visuals. Participants will learn how evidence tables—populated by expert opinion, empirical data, or both—connect EPA performance levels to underlying entrustability claims. Facilitators will walk through step-by-step examples to translate multiple workplace-based EPA ratings into scores that communicate the likelihood a trainee can perform a clinical activity to a desired standard. Attendees will see how these methods make the logic behind entrustment decisions explicit and reproducible, enhancing both validity and transparency.
3. Interactive Application:
   Small groups will work with example data sets, applying provided evidence tables to calculate probabilities and update entrustment estimates for a simulated trainee over multiple assessment encounters. Groups will discuss how rater stringency and case complexity can be incorporated into entrustment decisions. Participants will reflect on the difference between traditional summary statistics and interpretable, individualized profiles generated through evidence-based reasoning.
4. Building Trust and Next Steps:
   The workshop will conclude with an open discussion on integrating probabilistic thinking into local assessment systems. Strategies will include how to communicate the meaning of summary scores to stakeholders and the importance of transparency and explainability (including how well the process supports the emerging use of AI in assessment). Participants will receive a practical toolkit with templates for evidence tables and step-by-step calculation guides.

Summary:
This workshop empowers clinical educators and CCC members to harness EPA data with modern probabilistic reasoning, supporting defensible, individualized summative entrustment and improved trust in assessment outcomes. Participants will leave ready to champion data-driven, transparent assessment practices in their programs.

90-minute workshop

Yes

Yes

Explain key challenges in synthesizing EPA ratings for entrustment decisions.

Describe how probability models clarify the link between observable EPA ratings and measures of entrustability.

Apply probability models to EPA data (one’s own or simulated) to generate meaningful, transparent entrustment claims.

Discuss practical strategies for implementing these approaches in local assessment systems.