Background: For decades, practical clinical examinations have been valid and reliable methods to evaluate health sciences undergraduate students' clinical performance and competencies for a wide range of skills. Objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) is a widely used practical clinical examination. This study aims to assess health sciences students' perceptions about OSCE as an evaluation method of clinical skills acquisition. Methods:A descriptive cross-sectional design was used, and 157 students of five health science programs, who undergo real-time OSCE at Prince Sultan Military College of Health Sciences (PSMCHS), Dhahran, were invited to participate in this study. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed quantitatively. Results:The findings revealed that 57.8% of the participants perceived OSCE positively due to its unique features related to structure, logical sequence, standardized score tools, and coverage of a broad spectrum of critical clinical skills. On the contrary, 62.3% (n=96) of participants believed OSCE was stressful, and 58.4% (n=90) thought it was threatening because of inadequate preparation. Conclusion:Health sciences students perceived OSCE as an effective evaluation method for clinical skills. However, OSCEs generate feelings of uncertainty and aggravate a high-stress level. This stress requires the educators at the academic and clinical settings to conduct dry run simulated scenarios beforehand to orient and guide students to manage and confound their stress and anxiety during real-life OSCE experiences.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.