A Trial of OSPE as a formative assessment tool in Physiology

It's a well known fact that assessment drives learning. Assessment for practical skills in medical education has lot of scope for improvement. Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) has been considered as one such method. Feedback is given to the students and teachers after the examination. Hence OSPE was implemented as a Formative assessment tool for the 150 first MBBS students for the Clinical examination of cardio vascular System to know its Feasibility. Five stations were designed based on the clinical examination of cardio vascular system. A structured and validated check list was used. A feedback questionnaire was designed for the students and the faculty about the contents, timing of stations, their overall experience about OSPE, its feasibility and objectivity. It was observed that students performed better on Blood pressure station, followed by auscultation of Heart sound and least on percussion of Heart borders. Majority of the students (90%) found OSPE as a better method of assessment as compared to traditional practical method, 92% said OSPE prepares them better, 95% found OSPE is a better stimulus for study, 98% found it more reliable, 95% were happy about the time allotted to each station, 88% said it removes luck factor part from the examination, 68% found it less stressful, 90% students were happy for the use of check list. The faculty was happy with the feedback part associated with OSPE. But preparing a checklist was a time consuming task. We conclude that OSPE is useful in Physiology for formative assessment as it gives feedback to the students and teachers and provides integration in teaching and learning.