PERCEPTIONS OF FINAL PROFESSIONAL MBBS STUDENTS AND THEIR EXAMINERS ABOUT OBJECTIVE STRUCTURED CLINICAL EXAMINATION (OSCE): A COMBINED EXAMINER AND EXAMINEE SURVEY

Objective: To explore the perceptions of MBBS students and their examiners regarding OSCE who appeared in thefinal professional MBBS examination in 2015.Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a validated and pretested questionnaire already used by Khan Met al, in a similar study was distributed among 250 final year MBBS students and 14 examiners soon after the completionof their OSCE in the Department of Medicine of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) Peshawar. Questions were asked aboutany pre-exam orientation regarding OSCE, exam content, quality of performance, validity and reliability, learning opportunities,stress factor and its comparison with previous exam systems. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 16.Results: A total of 250 students participated in this survey, 150 (60%) of which were males and 100 (40%) females. Twohundred students (80%) stated that exam was fair and comprehensive, 88% believed OSCE was more stressful andmentally tougher than traditional exams like multiple choice questions (MCQs), short answer questions (SAQs) andviva. However, 90.8% of the examinees reported that OSCE provided an ample opportunity to learn and compensatefor areas of clinical weakness despite a huge stress factor. Two-hundred and ten (84%) students considered OSCE asa valid and reliable format of clinical assessment and 90% pledged that they would recommend OSCE for use in futureas a tool of assessment in medical education. The total number of examiners conducting the exam was 14, 10 (71.4%)of which were males and 4 (28.6%) were females. Majority of their statements correlated with those of the candidatesexamined. However, there was a sharp contrast in what they felt about stress levels and effect of gender, ethnicity andpersonality on the outcome of OSCE. Only 8% of the examiners (vs 88% of the candidates) thought that OSCE wasvery stressful and 14.3% of them (vs 64% of the candidates) were of the view that factors like gender, ethnicity andpersonality can affect the results of OSCE.Conclusion: Majority of students and examiners thought of OSCE as a fair, standardized and transparent way toassess clinical competencies though students found it tougher mentally in contrast to what the examiners perceived.Moreover, the element of pass by chance and bias was less in OSCE compared to other practical exams like SAQs,long questions and viva.