Assessment of MBBS medical students using (OSCE), comparing the modified borderline group method (MBGM), the modified Angoff method (MAM) and the holistic method of 50%

medical eduaction

For many decades, the traditional long obstetric case (LOC) has been the method of medical students’ assessment in the clinical examination in most medical schools worldwide. Unfortunately, the conventional clinical and practical examinations are beset with several problems and have been shown to have serious limitations in terms of validity and reliability [1, 2], though, has the advantage of assessing the patient in a holistic approach [3]. In the past few decades the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) became very popular and many medical schools started to adopt it as an alternative to the long obstetric case. It is believed to answer the limitation of the long obstetric case [2, 4, 5, and 6]. In the (OSCE), which was first introduced by Hardeen in 1975 [6], the students move round a number of stations, which are structured to test different clinical skills appropriate to them. These skills are patients’ examination, history taking and communication besides technical and procedural skills as long as interpretation of laboratory investigations in the light of a patient's problem. At these stations the candidate may meet a patient, real or simulated, a manikin, or less commonly patient data. A set amount of time, usually five or six minutes, is spent at each station; occasionally more complex double time stations may be included. Usually, the same basic circuit is followed by all candidates, although data stations may be changed in order to maintain confidentiality. Old, children and severely ill patients may also be change to prevent fatigue [6,5,1,7,8].An advantage of the (OSCE) over assessments that use real patients is that the patients are standardized across examinees and thus the patient problems are essentially equivalent and examinee responses and scores are comparable [9]. The (OSCE) is a valuable assessment tool to provide outcome measures on the competency performance and evaluate program effectiveness [10]. In order for the (OSCE) to be a suitable alternative to the traditional examination, the criteria of validity, reliability, objectivity and practicability or feasibility are to be ensured [7]. However despite its advantages, the (OSCE) has disadvantages of being exhausting, labor, time and resource intensive, stressful and a strong anxiety-producing exam [11, 12, 13, and 14].The objective of this study was to assess the performance of the MBBS medical students in the (OSCE)final obstetrics and gynecology clinical examination in the National Ribat University, comparing three different standard setting methods: the modified borderline group method (MBGM), the modified Angoff method (MAM) and the holistic method of (50%).

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