IMPLEMENTATION OF AN OBJECTIVE STRUCTURED CLINICAL EXAMINATION (OSCE) IN A KINESIOLOGY BACHELOR DEGREE

Abstract

"For the past four years, the Laval University’s kinesiology bachelor degree has been using an OSCE to assess their students’ clinical competencies. This presentation will describe the format the OSCE and will discuss the quality improvement process implemented following psychometric analysis of the test and its nine stations. The psychometrics qualities were tested using the Cronbach’s alpha, the stations’ difficulty level and discrimination index. An ANOVA has also been realised to ensure that the students’ results of a same station in a different circuit were equivalent regarding the examiners. In the 2018 edition, the psychometrics qualities were under the standards, especially the Cronbach’s alpha and the stations’ discrimination index. In order to improve the reliability of the test, modifications were made to seven of nine scoring grids. A committee revised each competencies’ component assessed and removed the ambiguous ones. The psychometrics qualities of the revised results improved accordingly. To prepare the 2019 edition, the OSCE committee reviewed the nine stations and adjusted the scoring grids. It also designed three new clinical situations. The psychometrics qualities of the 2019 edition have shown an improvement of the Cronbach’s alpha and the stations’ discrimination index. It has also demonstrated no significant differences between the circuits’ performance. The appreciation surveys administered following each edition revealed the quality of the support offered to the students, examiners and simulated patients and the authenticity of the clinical situations. We thus consider this OSCE to be a reliable method to assess students’ competencies of our kinesiology program."