WORKSHOP 1 (Maximum 30 seats)

Title: Medical Education - Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE): improving reliability and standard setting

INTRODUCTION

Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) are used world wide as a tool for assessing clinical and communication skills at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.  However, an important source of error in an OSCE relates to the examiner behaviour. There is evidence to show that examiner training reduces error variance and many Medical Schools now make this training compulsory. In this interactive workshop, participants will have the opportunity to learn how to mark OSCE stations, and how to work towards achieving consistency in their approach to marking, to reduce possible error. Different methods of standard-setting to determine the pass mark will also be introduced.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

	describe the role of OSCEs in assessing clinical competence
	identify ways of enhancing the reliability of the OSCE
	identify appropriate examiner behaviour
	describe ways of reducing examiner error
	describe methods of standard setting to determine which candidates should pass the OSCE

WHO WOULD BENEFIT?

	Examiners and potential examiners of medical students.
	Co-ordinators and tutors who use or are planning to use OSCEs for assessing clinical and communication skills.
	Assessment administrators