Clinical learning for pre-registration nursing students: a viva voce approach during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic restricted face-to-face contact between students and educators, limiting continual assessment of student's clinical skill development. This led to rapid transformational online adaptations to nursing education. This article will present and discuss the introduction of a clinical 'viva voce' approach, which has been used at one university to formatively assess students' clinical learning and reasoning skills using virtual methods. The Virtual Clinical Competency Conversation (V3C) was developed using the 'Think aloud approach' and involved facilitated one-to-one discussion based on two questions from a bank of 17 predefined clinically focused questions. A total of 81 pre-registration students completed the formative assessment process. Overall, feedback from students and academic facilitators was positive and facilitated both learning and consolidation in a safe and nurturing way. Further local evaluation is continuing to measure the impact of the V3C approach on student learning now that some aspects of face-to-face education have resumed.

Multiple Mini Viva as an Online Assessment Tool for Postgraduate Anatomy Programme: The USM's Experience Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

Assessment is fundamental to student learning as it shapes student learning behaviour. Designing a holistic assessment is a demanding task because it involves evaluations of both cognitive and noncognitive competencies. The unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 has led to many changes in the assessment practice of higher education institutions. To ensure the sustainability of education provision to all students, assessment activities in higher education institutions are mainly conducted through online platform, and the task becomes more challenging. Hence, we introduce a new holistic assessment method, the multiple mini viva (MMV), that is used in the assessment of the Master of Science (Clinical Anatomy) programme in Universiti Sains Malaysia. The MMV was adopted from the framework of multiple mini interview that is commonly used for the student selection process in medical and allied health sciences programmes. This form of assessment was first implemented to address the drawbacks of the classical viva voce, and it could assess students' cognitive skills, including various interpersonal competencies such as communication skills, critical thinking and professional behaviour. In this article, we describe the practice of the classical face-to-face and online MMV with regard to its purpose, process, advantages and challenges. The implications and suggestions for the future practice of anatomy assessment are also elaborated. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Effectiveness of an Online Viva Voce Workshop in Improving the Knowledge of Faculties of Various Health Science Courses in Mangalore, India

Introduction: Viva voce or oral examination is widely used to assess the cognitive domain along with attitude and communication skills of students. However, the role of traditional viva voce examinations has always been challenged for high stakes exams due to its poor reliability of assessment. Therefore, it is imperative to train faculty members in the correct procedures and assessment practices in viva voce examinations. Given the challenges faced due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, an online faculty training program was conducted and evaluated. Objective: To assess the effectiveness of an online faculty development programme in improving the knowledge of the good practices for the conduct of viva voce among faculty members. Methods: This intervention-based study was carried out among 32 faculty members who were participants of an online workshop on viva voce. It was held at a private medical college in November 2020. Relevant knowledge of the participants before and after the workshop was assessed using multiple choice questions designed in Google Doc. Paired and Unpaired t-tests were used to test associations. Results: The majority of the participants were faculties of clinical science subjects [17(53.1%)]. Their median years of teaching experience was 12.5(4, 25.7). Half of the participants attended this workshop to learn the recommended procedure for conducting a viva voce. The mean pre-test score among participants was 6.3±2.2, and the mean post-test score was 8.8±2.7 (t=4.381, p<0.001). Most participants gave a positive feedback about the workshop. Conclusion: Based on the performance scores and the positive feedback given by the participants, this online workshop was found to improve their knowledge regarding good practice for conducting a viva voce. The training of teachers in the proper conduct of viva voce is essential at every teaching institution and can be effectively delivered using online platforms, as confirmed by this study. © 2022, Kazan Federal University. All rights reserved.

VIVA VOCE AS AN AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT TOOL DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Viva voce is one of the traditional educational assessment tools which has lost its prominence in many disciplines over the years. We now see a resurgence of viva voce due to the need for remote examinations during the COVID-19 pandemic. During our experience of teaching business and entrepreneurial concepts to technology-focused students, we have implemented several oral assessment methods and now have used viva voce for over 1000 students. In our experience, the viva has given a more direct view of what students have or have not learnt throughout a semester. Our methods of applying viva voce and lessons learned are discussed in this practice paper. © Proceedings of the 2021 AIS SIGED International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research.