Faculty perspectives on the use of standardized versus non-standardized oral examinations to assess medical students

Abstract

Objectives To determine if faculty perceive standardized oral examinations to be more objective and useful than the non-standardized format in assessing third-year medical students’ learning on the obstetrics and gynecology rotation. Methods Obstetrics and gynecology faculty at three teaching hospitals were sampled to complete a survey retrospectively comparing the standardized oral examination (SOE) and non-standardized or traditional oral examinations (TOE). A Likert scale (0-5) was used to assess satisfaction, objectivity, and usefulness of SOE and TOE. Wilcoxon signed rank test was performed to compare median Likert scale scores for each survey item. A Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to investigate the relationship between the perceived level of objectivity and SOE characteristics. For qualitative measures, content analysis was applied. Results Sixty-six percent (n=25) of eligible faculty completed the survey. Faculty perceived the standardized oral examination as significantly more objective compared with the non-standardized (z=-3.15, p=0.002). Faculty also found SOE to be more useful in assessing overall clerkship performance (z=-2.0, p<0.05). All of the survey participants were willing to administer the standardized examination again. Faculty reported strengths of the SOE to be uniformity, fairness, and ease of use. Major weaknesses reported included inflexibility and decreased ability to assess students’ higher order reasoning skills. Conclusions Faculty found standardized oral examinations to be more objective in assessing third-year medical students’ clinical competency when compared with a non-standardized approach. This finding can be meaningfully applied to medical education programs internationally.

Online lessons of human anatomy: Experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Finally, we are aware that the reliability of oral examinations need not be poor, or at least no poorer than other assessment methods. We believe that increasing the number of oral examinations (about two to three students/hour) and the number of examiners improves the reliability (Daelmans et al, 2001 ; Johnson et al, 2018 ).…”

“…We believe that increasing the number of oral examinations (about two to three students/hour) and the number of examiners improves the reliability (Daelmans et al, 2001;Johnson et al, 2018).…”

Asynchronous Environment Assessment: A Pertinent Option for Medical and Allied Health Profession Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This effect is captured with a Likert scale because script theory assumes that clinical reasoning is composed of a series of qualitative judgments. This is an appropriate approach for asynchronous environment assessment because it demands both critical and clinical thinking [27][28][29].…”

“…The problem-based questions can be an individual/group assignment, and the teacher can use a discussion forum on the learning management system (LMS) online platform, allowing students to post their views and possible solutions to the problem. The asynchronous communication environment is suitable for problems based on case studies because it provides sufficient time for the learner to gather resources in the search for solutions [24,25,28].…”

“…The moderator then facilitates the conversations, and intervenes only if required to obtain greater insight, stimulate, or guide further responses. The subject teacher moderates the interactions between the groups and their competence can be adjudged based on individual contributions [25,26,28]. A format of assessment rubrics is given in Table 2.…”