ABSTRACT
Background: Objective structures clinical examination [OSCE] is one of the most common methods used to test aspects of clinical competency in healthcare education. Nowadays most of the medical schools practice OSCEs but the implementation phase differs, some medical schools use OSCEs exclusively in their clinical phases and some use it early in their pre-clinical phases
Aim: To explore the perceptions of the phase 3 students about the effectiveness of [OSCE] in the pre-clinical phase at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences
Method: Cross-sectional study was done on 193 students by distributing Validated questionnaires 2 on all male and female medical students who are in phase 3 in 2017/2018 year in KSAU-HS in Riyadh. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20. For categorical data such as gender, two-sample t test was used. For quantitative data such as age and GPA, correlation coefficient method was used
Results: 193 students with mean age of 23.47 were included in the study. About 59% of the students agreed that OSCEs were a useful experience. However only 33.2% agreed that OSCE scores provide a true measure of essential clinical skills. Also, 46.6% of the students think that personality and social relation will affect OSCE scores. T test and correlation coefficient values showed that there was no significant difference between the demographic data in the study
Conclusion and Recommendations: Students consider OSCEs as valuable and practical experiences in the pre-clinical phase, but need improvement in the organization and the evaluation. To decrease personality and social relation effectiveness on OSCE scores, the evaluator can evaluate the students by Video from a different room without knowing his name. In conclusion, we recommend practicing OSCE exams in the pre-clinical phase if the college has suitable facilities and resources to conduct the exams