Feedback of undergraduate nursing students about objective structured practical examination

Abstract

Background: An essential part of a nursing curriculum is an accurate clinical assessment of nursing students’ skills. The objective structured practical examination (OSPE) is the modified version of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) used for a summative assessment of practical knowledge and skills in nursing education. Aim: The current study was undertaken to evaluate the performance and feedback of undergraduate nursing students about OSPE.

Methods: A cross sectional study design was carried out on the students who participated in the OSPE, which was done at the Faculty of Nursing, Tanta University, Egypt. The study included students enrolled in fundamental, medical surgical, critical care nursing, obstetric, and pediatric nursing course. 100 students from each branch were asked to fill structured questionnaire after OSPE.

Results: Overall there were no significant differences in the mean score of students' opinion in relation to the structure and format of examination, conduct of examination, and evaluation of examination compared with the four departments (pediatric, obstetric, fundamental, medical surgical and critical care nursing) (p = 1.000).

Conclusions: Students in pediatric, obstetric, fundamental, medical surgical and critical care nursing departments preferred OSPE for evaluating clinical skills and perceived it as more organized, objective, structure, valid, and less anxious. Student’s feedback was invaluable regarding need more time at each station. Also, students argued several suggestions for enhancing quality of OSPE in assessing process.