An Objective Structured Clinical Examination to Assess Problem-Based Learning

Abstract

Objectives. To compare pharmacy students' performance on an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) to their performance on a written examination for the assessment of problem-based learning (PBL); and to determine students' and faculty members' perceptions of OSCEs for PBL evaluations. Design. Four OSCEs were added to the written examination to assess 4 PBL cases in a third-year pharmacotherapy course. OSCE scores were compared to written examination scores. Faculty members evaluated student performance. Assessment. OSCE performance did not correlate with the written-examination scores. Most students ($ 75%) agreed that OSCEs reflected their learning from PBL and measured knowledge, communication, and clinical skills. A majority of faculty members ($75%) agreed that OSCEs should be part of PBL assessment. Conclusions. Addition of an OSCE to written examinations was valued and provided a more comprehensive assessment of the PBL experience.

Validation and Evaluation of an OSCE in Undergraduate Doctor of Pharmacy Program

“…Although the satisfaction about the appropri ateness of the exam environment was somewhat low, this can be improved in future by dividing the student's exam into two sessions to decrease the number of students per each exam session, these finding show that OSCE can be applied in simplified and low cost mode and in a valid manner. The students were satisfied about the difficulty of the exam, students' views on fairness and difficulty of the exam may not necessarily be consistent with other published literature 20 and these findings must not be interpreted in isolation. Students was somewhat less satisfied about the time allowed to perform the exam, this problem will be taken into account in the future to increase time per each station to 15 minutes that used in some pharmacy OSCE programs, but it may be related to students' naivety to this method of assessment where it has been shown that many students felt that the OSCE was a highly anxietyproducing exam, more stressful than other types of examinations and should be introduced earlier in the curriculum.…”

“…In spite of some variations in average scores between individual stations that were found for some areas, the overall results were more similar than expected, this finding is consistent with another study that compared between different OSCE stations. 20 OSCE achievements among third and fourth groups were similar, indicating the consistency of OSCE design even with different number of stations used.…”

“…Students was somewhat less satisfied about the time allowed to perform the exam, this problem will be taken into account in the future to increase time per each station to 15 minutes that used in some pharmacy OSCE programs, but it may be related to students' naivety to this method of assessment where it has been shown that many students felt that the OSCE was a highly anxietyproducing exam, more stressful than other types of examinations and should be introduced earlier in the curriculum. 20 Students highly agreed that OSCE was a helpful exam to them, they also indicated that they had a good expe rience with such exam and felt that OSCE evaluated their counseling skills in a good way. These findings were consistent with similar studies reported that over whelming proportion of the students saw the OSCE as a good opportunity to simulate reallife scenarios and provided a useful practical learning experience and feedback to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in clinical skills.…”

“…22,23 Although a larger number of stations has been used to increase the reliability of OSCE in a highstake setting (such as The Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada's Qualifying Examination), 14 a small OSCE station number, in conjunction with the written exam, can serve as a reliable, valid and economically feasible global assessment method of student performance. 18,20 Although we did not conduct any interrater reliability testing, the similarity in the exam scores indicated that the interrater and interpatient variability didn't affect reliability of the exam. However, it should be noted that OSCE is contextual and the assessment method should ideally reflect how students will perform in real clinical settings when they are not being observed.…”

Evaluation of Clinical and Communication Skills of Pharmacy Students and Pharmacists with an Objective Structured Clinical Examination

“…2 Literature supports the use of OSCEs to evaluate clinical knowledge and competence, professional judgment, problem-solving skills, and interpersonal and communication skills. [6][7][8] The combination of the OSCE with standardized board examinations has the potential to become the gold standard for measuring physician competence. 9 For years, physicians have used OSCEs as part of their licensing process.…”