Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) as a tool for assessment of practical skills in basic medical sciences

• Author Details:   
• Vinod Prabhushetty T

---

Introduction: Method of Assessment in medical education plays a major role in student’s performance specially in the practicals, mainly the psychomotor domain. The presently followed traditional method has many lacunaes & need for newer methods like OSPE. The study has been taken to compare the OSPE with traditional subjective assessment method & to evaluate OSPE as reliable and valid assessment method.
Materials and Method: This comparative study was conducted at Physiology Department, M.R. Medical College, 300 out of 350 apparently healthy, first year students of MBBS, BDS and BHMS streams were included in the study. Practical demonstration on Study of Compound Microscope was conducted. After the demonstration they appeared for practical examination on handling of microscope as per the informed schedule. Students appearing for practical examination were divided into two groups. Group A consisting of 150 students were assessed by traditional subjective method like practical viva-voce. Group B consisting of 150 students were assessed by OSPE which had one observation station carrying 10 marks and 4 minutes was allotted. A check list was prepared based on the objectives and the same is used for assessment and consideration of marks. Chi-square and Z- test was used for statistical analysis and p value of < 0.05 considered as statistically significant.
Results: On observation of mean and standard deviation values of marks scored Z = 2.63, P<0.05 was statistically significant and overall performance of two groups ᵡ² = 48.07 P < 0.0001 highly significant, results indicate that OSPE is effective method of evaluation as shown by the better performance of students.
Conclusion: Hence OSPE is a reliable and valid method of assessment and can be considered in the practical examinations.

Keywords: OSPE, Practical skills, Assessment, Performance