Student midwives' perspectives on efficacy of feedback after objective structured clinical examination

Abstract

Students' experience of feedback is considered an indicator of the efficacy of the assessment process. Negative experiences of feedback are unproductive in terms of the likelihood that students will act on and learn from assessment. To understand the impact of feedback on learning, this study explored the experiences of student midwives after receiving feedback following objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Data were collected from second-year undergraduate student midwives who had recently completed OSCE, via a focus group. Students reported raised stress levels, concerns around legitimacy of feedback, and inconsistencies in the manner in which feedback was articulated. Assessment feedback in higher education should be used to empower students to become self-regulated learners. This is important for student midwives, for whom a considerable amount of learning is spent in practice. The study has implications for midwifery academics concerned with modes of assessment and quality of assessment feedback in midwifery education.

Students’ and examiners’ perception of feedback practices following OSCE in Uniport

“…This is very important and agrees with the report of a previous study where majority of the students rated being able to understand a feedback as the most desired thing about a feedback (Hall et al, 2012). This finding in this study may be linked to the fact that majority of these students (89.36%) also found the feedback to be friendly, supporting the suggestion of Killingley and Dyson (2016) that students' experiences of feedback are the most important indicator of the effectiveness of the feedback process.…”

“…Whether written or verbal, the important thing is that it should be individualized and this fact was corroborated by the report of Mulliner and Tucker (2015) that students preferred individualized verbal and written feedback. Pankonin and Myers (2017) and Killingley and Dyson (2016) noted that negative or offensive feedback will not only affect students' engagement with the feedback but will also affect their behaviour indirectly by decreasing their feeling of self-worth. The study revealed that only a small proportion of examiners (7.50%) reported that students had complained of receiving offensive feedback.…”

“…The study revealed that only a small proportion of examiners (7.50%) reported that students had complained of receiving offensive feedback. Negative feedback experiences have been given as one of the reasons why students fail to act and learn from the feedback (Killingley & Dyson, 2016).…”

Gerontological Nursing Students' Evaluation and Feedback about Objective Structured Clinical Examination

“…Moreover, students' feedback is considered a good indicator about the efficiency of the assessment tool and useful in improvements. The feedback received supports the applicability of this method in assessing the performance of nursing students (24) . Accordingly, this study was conducted to determine the nursing students' evaluation and feedback about objective structure clinical examination in the field of gerontological nursing.…”