Feedback Integrated with Objective Structured Clinical Examination Module- A Teaching Tool in Physiology Department

Introduction: Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is designed to evaluate various learners’ skills. Formative feedback reinforces appropriate learning and contributes to correction of learner’s deficiencies. It was observed that the students in Clinical Physiology labs did not have direct observation and feedback on performance of clinical examination to address the gaps in knowledge and clinical skills.

Aim: To evaluate the perception of students and faculty on the effectiveness of structured feedback integrated with OSCE module for teaching clinical skills in Physiology Department.

Materials and Methods: A non randomised, intervention study was conducted on 100 phase I Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) students. Students were sensitised to OSCE topics. After taking written informed consent, initial OSCE sessions integrated with 1:1 feedback was conducted followed by OSCE sessions after 20 days in the same topics of clinical examination. OSCE scores were recorded. Feedback survey questionnaire to assess the perceptions of phase I MBBS students and retrospective pre-post assessment questionnaire was designed and administered. Student’s t-test, Likert scale analysis and Thematic analysis of the responses were done.

Results: Of the total 100 phase I MBBS students, males were 46 and females were 54 with a mean age of 20 and 19 years, respectively. Significant percentage of students got the opportunity to have constructive discussions of their strengths and weaknesses of learning clinical skills with the faculty (p-value=0.0246) and also felt satisfied with the structured points of the feedback given by the faculty (p-value=0.03181). There was significant increase in the OSCE scores of the students after the OSCE session integrated with feedback. Majority of the faculty felt satisfied with self assessment of student’s learning gaps and with the performance of clinical system examination by the students. Faculty confidence to give structured feedback to the students had improved.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that 1:1 structured feedback integrated with OSCE has significant educational impact and is an effective method for teaching clinical skills in physiology labs. It is one of the efficient ways to use OSCE checklists as an effective teaching resource.