Evaluation of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) versus Conventional Clinical Examination as a Formative Assessment Tool in Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Conventional clinical examination system mostly assesses student’s theoretical knowledge and fails to assess clinical competencies required for future practice. Hence, we plan to implement objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) as an evaluation tool which could be used for formative assessment in clinical examination.

To estimate the difference in OSCE scores among final year MBBS students before and after a month long obstetrics and gynaecology (OBG) clinical postings; comparison between OSCE and conventional clinical examination scores and students and faculty perception about OSCE and conventional clinical examination.

Final year eighth term students posted for OBG clinical clerkship were subjected for OSCE before and at the end of the postings. Same group of students were subjected to conventional clinical examination. Scores were analysed using paired t test. Students and faculty perception about OSCE and conventional examination were obtained by pre-validated feedback questionnaire and analysed using Likert’s scale.

There were significant improvement in between pre-test (25.1) and post-test OSCE (34.7 p value <0.0001) scores. Faculty and students favoured OSCE as an assessment tool and strongly perceived that OSCE could be implemented for better evaluation for formative assessments.

In this study, we have found that there is receptivity among faculty and students to use OSCE as a tool for formative assessment in obstetrics and gynaecology. The study also revealed that student's performance was better in OSCE when compared with traditional clinical examination