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Effect of a Formative Objective Structured Clinical Examination on the Clinical Performance of Undergraduate Medical Students in a Summative Examination: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Indian Pediatrics volume 56, pages 745–748 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective

To study the effect of formative Objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) on the undergraduate medical students’ performance in a subsequent summative-OSCE assessment.

Methods

In a randomized single-blind trial, 130 fifth year medical students at Raparin hospital, Erbil were assigned to intervention (n=61) and control group (n=69). Formative-OSCE was performed for the intervention group in pediatric module with feedback on their performance versus standard pediatric module for the control group. Students’ clinical performance was assessed by a summative-OSCE. Multiple regression was used to predict the summative-OSCE score depending on the participation in formative-OSCE along with the other factors.

Results

Eleven students were excluded because of early drop-out, leaving 119 students for analysis. The summative-OSCE mean score (out of a total score of 100) in intervention group 64.6 (10.91) was significantly lower as compared to the control group 69.2 (10.45).

Conclusion

Single formative-OSCE does not necessarily lead to better performance in subsequent summative-OSCE.

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Funding

Funding: Hawler Medical University. No contribution to data design, collection, analysis or interpretation was made by the funding resource.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Hawler Medical University, Erbil, Kurdistan region, Iraq

    Nazdar Ezzaddin Alkhateeb

  2. Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Hawler Medicine University, Erbil, Kurdistan region, Iraq

    Ali Al-Dabbagh

  3. Department of Community Medicine, College of Medicine, Hawler Medicine University, Erbil, Kurdistan region, Iraq

    Mohammed Ibrahim

  4. Clinical Training, Queensland Health Service, Queensland, Australia

    Namir Ghanim Al-Tawil

Authors
  1. Nazdar Ezzaddin Alkhateeb
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  2. Ali Al-Dabbagh
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  3. Mohammed Ibrahim
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  4. Namir Ghanim Al-Tawil
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Contributions

Contributors: MI,NA,AA: study design and concept; NG was the trial coordinator and participated in data analysis and interpretation. NA: data collection, data entry and wrote the draft of manuscript. All authors critically reviewed and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nazdar Ezzaddin Alkhateeb.

Additional information

Competing Interest: None stated.

Ethical clearance: The study was approved by Ethics Committee of the College of Medicine of Hawler Medical University (document no.16, 23/4/2016)

Trial Registration: Clinical trial.gov/NCT 035 99232.

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Alkhateeb, N.E., Al-Dabbagh, A., Ibrahim, M. et al. Effect of a Formative Objective Structured Clinical Examination on the Clinical Performance of Undergraduate Medical Students in a Summative Examination: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Indian Pediatr 56, 745–748 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13312-019-1641-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13312-019-1641-0

Keywords

  • Assessment
  • Clinical competence
  • Educational measurement
  • Medical Eduation