INTRODUCTIONThe learning cycle is a triad of educational objectives, instructional methodology and assessment. Amongst these assessment is a critical issue. Effective assessment tool for each domain of learning should be able to judge student"s performance and progress through the course in a fair and objective manner. Assessment process itself needs evaluation and refinement in the light of emerging insights. Oral examinations are used as a mode of assessment of medical students. Viva voce has been an old traditional method of examining student"s knowledge, basic concepts, comprehension level and also communication power in "question and answer" format. 2 In traditional viva voce there may be variations in the time allotted to each student, number of questions asked, and difficulty level of the questions. Questions may not cover the entire syllabus. There may be some biases such as the "dove/hawk" effect characterizing some examiners as more lenient or tough than others, the "halo effect" ABSTRACT Background: Oral examinations are used as a mode of assessment of medical students. There are many deficiencies and biases in traditional viva voce. In view of minimizing deficiencies and biases this study was conducted with the objective of obtaining the perceptions of students and teachers about objectively structured viva voce (OSVV). Methods: OSVV was conducted during formative assessment in Microbiology. 56 participants (50 students+6 faculties) were included. Feedback in the form of questionnaire (based on Likert scale and open ended questions) was obtained from all the participants. All faculties felt that the overall process was better than traditional viva voce. Results: Students response to statements suggested a more positive than negative reception to this form of assessment. However there was variation in the response to different statements. 80-90% students agreed that time allotted was adequate and questions were easy to understand. 60-80% felt that this method a well-organized system that cover most of topics from the syllabus and will be helpful in enhancing performance in final examination.68% students agreed that OSVV is an effective tool but they were not confident whether OSVV is better than traditional viva voce. 42% agreed and 38% were neutral in their opinion whether OSVV is better than traditional viva voce. Conclusions: There is need of extensive ground work, training of teachers, orientation of students, practice to students by mock exams etc. A large sample than used here would be needed to substantiate this trend. OSVV should be tried in all other medical subjects and in large number of medical colleges.

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