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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Med.

Sec. Healthcare Professions Education

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1441747

GPT-4’s capabilities for formative and summative assessments in Norwegian medicine exams—an intrinsic case study in the early phase of intervention

Provisionally accepted
  • University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The growing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in education has paved the way for innovative assessment methods. This study explores the capabilities of GPT-4 (LLM), on a medicine exam and for formative and summative assessments in Norwegian educational settings. Prior studies have revealed that LLM's can have certain potential in medical education but have not specifically examined how GPT-4 can enhance formative and summative assessments in medical education. Therefore, my study contributes to filling gaps in the current knowledge by examining GPT-4's capabilities for formative and summative assessment in medical education in Norway. For this purpose, a case study design was employed, and the primary data sources were 110 exam questions, 10 blinded exam questions, and 2 patient cases within medicine. The findings from this case study revealed that GPT-4 performed well on the summative assessment, with a robust handling of the Norwegian medical language. Further, GPT-4 demonstrated a reliable evaluation of comprehensive student exams, such as patient cases, and, thus, aligned closely with human assessments. The findings suggest that GPT-4 can improve formative assessment by providing timely, personalized feedback to support student learning. This study highlights the importance of both an empirical and theoretical understanding of the gap between traditional assessment methods and educational practices and AIenhanced approaches-particularly the importance of the ability of chain-of-thought prompting, how AI can scaffold tutoring, and assessment practices. However, continuous refinement and human oversight remain crucial to ensure the effective and responsible integration of LLM's like GPT-4 into educational settings.

    Keywords: GPT-4, formative assessment, Summative assessment, Final exams, Medicine, case study, Educational innovation

    Received: 31 May 2024; Accepted: 27 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Krumsvik. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rune Johan Krumsvik, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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