Perception and acceptance of senior medical students at King Abdulaziz University of the use of Objective Structured Clinical Examination as a tool of assessment

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Introduction: The faculty of Medicine at King Abdulaziz University (KAU) introduced the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) as a tool of assessing medical students in the last decade. In our study, we aimed to assess the perception and acceptance of OSCE among students and to interpret rating of OSCE in relation to other assessment methods.Methodology : A cross-sectional survey using electronic validated questionnaire, was distributed through different methods which included Short Message Service, social media website, and posters. The questionnaire contained various domains about students' perception of OSCE validity and reliability, and rating of OSCE in relation to other assessment methods.Results : Among 246 students who responded to the survey, 52% of them denied that OSCE provided opportunity to learn real life scenarios. Interestingly, more than 80% of students showed concern about inter-evaluator and inter-patient variability as bias factors that could affect their scores. Passing or failing the OSCE was not a true measure of clinical skills as 77% of students admitted.Conclusion : Although OSCE exam is supposed to be standardized and fair to students, our survey raised concerns regarding the conduction of OSCE especially regarding inter-evaluator and inter-patient variability.