Factors predicting students' performance in the final pediatrics OSCE

Abstract

Background: Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) have been used to assess the clinical competence of medical students for decades. Limited data are available on the factors that predict students' performance on the OSCEs. The aim of our study was to evaluate the factors predicting performance on the pediatrics final OSCE, including the timing of students' clerkship and their performance on the in-training OSCE and written examinations.

Methods: Grades in pediatrics for 3 consecutive academic years (2013-2016) were included. The average scores of the in-training OSCEs, written and final OSCEs and written exams were compared among the three years using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. The correlations between performance on the final OSCEs and the in-training OSCEs, in-training written exams and final written exams were studied using Spearman's Rho correlation test. The effect of the timing of the clerkship on the final OSCE performance was evaluated.

Results: A total of 286 students' records were included. There were 115 male students and 171 female students (M:F 1:1.5). There were strong positive correlations between students' performance on the in-training examinations (OSCE and written) and the final OSCE (correlation coefficients of 0.508 and 0.473, respectively). The final written exam scores were positively correlated with the final OSCEs (r = 0.448). There was no significant effect of the timing of the clerkship.

Conclusions: Students' performance on in-training examinations might predict their final OSCE scores. Thus, it is important to provide students with the necessary intervention at an early stage to reduce failure rates. The final OSCE performance does not seem to be affected by the timing of the clerkship.

Fig 1. Distribution of the final grades for the students in individual years and collectively.