“I’ve been freaking out about OSCEs from day one!”
An OSCE, or objective standardised clinical examination (hopefully not "one student cries every time"!) is a practical examination format that is widely used in veterinary nursing education.
OSCEs have been around since the early 1970s, when they were recognised as a better and fairer way to assess doctors who were about to graduate from medical school than a rambling, interview-style oral examination. They typically consist of 8-20 individual stations where the student is asked to perform a task within a specified time limit (typically 5-10 minutes). Typical individual station tasks include things like running a blood test or dressing a wound. The student is graded by an examiner on their performance rather than their knowledge i.e. it doesn't matter if he/she can describe a perfect bandage, the student will pass or fail based on how they actually put one on.
OSCEs are widely used just before graduation as they are recognised as a competency test i.e. they measure what a student can actually do. Successful candidates are deemed to have shown that they are ready to enter the workplace as a registered veterinary nurse. A newly qualified veterinary nurse is expected to be safe, not perfect, and for this reason statistical analysis is used to determine the pass mark per task and for the overall examination.
Being a performance test is seen as advantageous, as it is a better way to test if someone is able to practise as a veterinary nurse than written or oral exams. However from a student's perspective an OSCE is often seen as an ordeal and is associated with a lot of nerves and dread. The reasons for this are often related to performance anxiety and the fear of being scrutinised by a mostly silent examiner (much like a driving test).
We recently undertook a research project at DkIT to see if we could help students to better manage the nerves associated with an OSCE and ensure that they turned up on the day ready to do themselves justice. You can read the resulting article here. My colleagues and I would like to thank all the veterinary nursing students who took part in this research project.
Karen Dunne
August 2018