Utilization of objective structured clinical examination as an assessment strategy for undergraduate nursing students
Abstract
The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) has been widely and increasingly used since its inception in 1975. It was specifically focused on assessing the clinical skills of medical students. Since then the OSCE has been adapted for use in other health professional curricula, particularly nursing. At undergraduate level, three factors that indicate that OSCE is best used for the assessment of psychomotor skills are, firstly, that undergraduate nurses operate towards the novice end of the novice-expert continuum. Secondly, nurses must be sufficiently competent to practise their profession safely prior to clinical placement and, finally, the difficulties of replicating a real-world clinical environment in an examination context need to be acknowledged. This article, therefore, provides an overview of the utilisation of OSCE as an assessment tool for undergraduate nursing students. Different approaches to OSCE, preparation and planning for OSCE, scoring rubric, quality assurance strategies, advantage and disadvantages of this assessment approach are discussed.References
Barry, M., Noonan, M., Bradshaw, C. & Murphy-Tighe, S. 2012. An exploration of student midwives’ of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination. Nurse Education Today, 32: 690-694.
Bujack, L., McMillan, M., Dwyer, J. & Hazleton, M. 1991. Assessing comprehensive nursing performance: the objective structured clinical assessment (OSCA). Part 1: development of the assessment strategy. Nursing Education Today, 11: 179-184.
Clarke, S., Rainey, D. & Traynor, M. 2011. Using Objective Structured Clinical Examination. International Journal of Orthopaedic and Trauma Nursing, (15) 92-101.
Ebbert, D. & Connors, H. 2004. Standardise patient experiences: Evaluation of clinical performance and nurse practitioner student satisfaction. Nursing Education Perspectives, 1: 12-15.
Gibbons, S., Adamo, G., Padden, D., Ricciardi, R., Graziano, M., Levine, N., et al. 2002. Clinical evaluation in advanced practice nursing education: Using standardised patients in health assessment. Journal of Nursing Education, 41: 215-221.
Harden, R.M & Gleeson, F.A. 1979. Assessment of clinical competence using an objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). British Medical Journal, 13(1):39-54.
Harden, R., Stevenson, M., Wilson Downie, W., Wilson G. 1975. Assessment of clinical competence using objective structured clinical examination. British Medical Journal, 1: 447-451.
Hodges, B & McIlroy, J.H. 2003. Analytic global OSCE ratings are sensitive to level of training. Medical Education, 37: 1012-1016.
Khan, K.Z., Gaunt, K., Ramachandran, S. & Pushkar, P. 2013. The objective structured clinical examination (OSCE): AMEE Guide No. 81. Part II: Organisation & administration. Medical Teacher, 35: e1447-e1463.
Khattab, A & Rawlings, B. 2001. Assessing nurse practitioner students using a modified objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Nurse Education Today, 21: 541-550.
Kurz J.M., Mahoney, K., Martin-Plank, L. & Lidicker, J. 2009. Objective structured clinical examination and advanced practice nursing students. Journal of Professional Nursing, 25(3): 186-191.
Major, D.A. 2005. OSCEs-Seven years on the bandwagon: The progress of an Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation programme. Nurse Education Today, 25(6):442-454.
Mårtensson, G. & Löfmark, A. 2013. Implementation and student evaluation of clinical final examination in nursing education. Nurse Education Today, 33: 1563-1568.
Mavis, B., Henry, R., Ogle, K. & Hoppe, R. 1996. The emporer’s new clothes: the OSCE revisited. Academic Medicine, 71(5): 447-453.
Meyer, SM. & van Niekerk, S.E. 2008. Nurse Educator in practice. Cape Town: Juta.
Mitchell, M.L., Henderson, A., Groves, M., Dalton, N., Nulty, D. 2009. The objective structured clinical examination (OSCE): optimising its value in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. Nurse Education Today, 30: 345-348.
Morgan, P.J., Cleave-Hogg, D & Guest, C.B. 2001. A comparison of global ratings and checklist scores from an undergraduate assessment using an anaesthesia simulator. Academic Medical, 76: 1053-1055.
Muldoon, K., Biesty, L & Smith, V. 2013. ‘I found the OSCE very stressful: Student midwives’ attitudes towards an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Nurse Education Today, 34(3): 468-473.
Rushforth, H.E. 2007. OSCE: review of literature and implications for nursing education. Nurse Education Today, 27: 481-490.
Stevens, D.D. & Levi, A. 2005. Introduction to rubrics: An assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback and promote student learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishers.
Taras, M. 2005. Assessment-summative and formative-some theoretical reflections. British Journal of Educational Studies, 53 (4): 466-478.
Turner, J.L. & Dankoski, M.E. 2008. Objective structured clinical exams: A critical review. Family Medicine, 40(8): 574-578.
Ward, H. & Barratt, J. 2005. Assessment of nurse practitioner advanced clinical practice skills: using the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Primary Health Care, 16(3): 22-24.
Ward, H. & Willis, A. 2006. Assessing advanced clinical practice skills. Primary Health Care, 16(3): 22-24.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Creative Commons License - CC BY 4.0
