Scoring Clinical Competencies of Learners: A Quantitative Descriptive Study

ABSTRACT

This article reports the correlation between different clinical assessors' scoring of learners' clinical competencies in order to exclude any possible extraneous variables with regard to reasons for poor clinical competencies of learners. A university in Gauteng; South Africa provides a learning programme that equips learners with clinical knowledge; skills and values in the assessment; diagnosis; treatment and care of patients presenting at primary health care (PHC) facilities. The researcher observed that; despite additional clinical teaching and guidance; learners still obtained low scores in clinical assessments at completion of the programme. This study sought to determine possible reason(s) for this observation. The objectives were to explore and describe the demographic profile of learners and the correlation between different clinical assessors' scoring of learners. A purposive convenience sample consisted of learners (n = 34) and clinical assessors (n = 6). Data were collected from learners using a self-administered questionnaire and analysed using a nominal and ordinal scale measurement. Data from clinical assessors were collected using a checklist; which was statistically analysed using a software package. The variables were correlated to determine the nature of the relationship between the different clinical assessors' scores on the checklist to ensure inter-rater reliability. Findings showed that there was no significant difference in the mean of the scoring of marks between clinical assessors after correlation (p 0.05). Thus; scoring of marks did not contribute to poor clinical competencies exhibited by learners