Primary school children in a large-scale OSCE: Recipe for disaster or formula for success?

Abstract

Background

What makes a good children’s doctor? Exploring the child perspective in the OSCE setting

“…All 28 children said that they had enjoyed taking part in the exam and agreed that it had been a 'good experience', in line with feedback from children over several years (Darling & Bardgett 2013). Children's scores for the 256 medical students in response to the above question ranged from 2 to 10, with a median of 9 (figure 1) and mean score of 8.46.…”

“…However, in adult practice it has been recognised that examiners are not able to accurately represent patient views (McLaughlin et al 2006), and that it is better to ask patients or simulated patients to give their own scores in these domains. Similarly, in paediatric practice, paediatricians acting as examiners are often asked to give scores on behalf of child patients, but our work suggests that they may be looking at different qualities (Darling & Bardgett 2013). Qualities considered important by paediatric health professionals may be of less value to children themselves, reflecting findings in adult patients (Jung et al 1997).…”

Teaching and assessing the clinical examination skills of children

“…Dear Sir I agree with the authors (Darling & Bardgett 2013) that being able to examine a child is a core skill for practitioners in many settings. Teaching and assessing this core skill in children is always a challenge.…”

Can children acting as simulated patients contribute to scoring of student performance in an OSCE?

“…In the education sphere, children interview prospective teachers (Henry, 2005;Mansell, 2010;Williams, 2010 Within medical education, our School of Medicine has been considering how best to involve children in undergraduate medical OSCE exams. We have previously reported the feasibility of involving a class of primary school children in a large-scale OSCE (Darling & Bardgett, 2013), and the perspective of the child in this setting (Bardgett, Darling, Webster, & Kime, 2015). However, there is very little published literature on whether children acting as simulated patients can contribute to scoring of student performance for use in pass/fail decision-making.…”