Comparison of students' performance in the traditional oral clinical examination and the objective structured clinical examination

Objectives: To find out whether the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) using standardized patients allows the same evaluation of students as the traditional oral clinical examination (TOCE) using real patients. Methods: The results of 4 cohorts of students (904 students) in the end of posting examination (using the TOCE), and the end of year examination (using OSCE) during the academic years 2003-2006 at King Abdulaziz University, Faculty of Medicine, Jeddah, Kingdom of saudi Arabia were analyzed retrospectively. Spearman's correlation coefficient was calculated for comparison of performance in the different parts of the 2 examinations. Results: There was a strong positive correlation between the results of the OSCE and the final grade of the students (r=0.786), and between the TOCE and the final grade of the students (r=0.591). The coefficient for correlation between the results of the OSCE and TOCE was 0.406. Conclusion: The OSCE can be used for the evaluation of clinical skills like the TOCE with better objectivity and reliability.