Background: Assessment and evaluation is a continuous activity which should be designed simultaneously with curriculum development. Internal assessment plays prominent role in educational process as assessments are educational tools that help teachers to evaluate students’ performance and also serve to motivate and help student to structure his academic effort.

Methods: A retrospective, record based, descriptive study  was conducted over a period of three months in a medical college in north India by retrieving records of routine assessment and final summative examination based students’ performance in pharmacology for four  batches (2013-2016). Statistical analysis was performed by Pearson’s correlation to observe the correlation between internal assessment scores and final summative examination.

Results: A clear cut correlation between internal assessment marks and final summative examination was observed to be significant, which means continuous assessment has important role in final examination performance.

Conclusion: The study indicates that internal assessment and final summative examination have a strong correlation though not absolutely straight. The study underlines the need for establishing protocols for conducting internal assessment programme as it is a good indicator of academic performance of MBBS students.

Keywords: Internal assessment, indicator, performance, MBBS students, curricullum.

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Dr Ajay Kumar

Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Acharya Shri Chander College of Medical Sciences & Hospital, Sidhara, Jammu, J&K 180017

Phone (or Mobile) No.: 09419131214, Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.