Radiology as part of an objective structured clinical examination on clinical skills

IntroductionAn objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) assessess clinical competence in a standardised and context related manner. Compared with written tests, OSCE's are more susceptible to reliability errors because of the use of multiple cases and multiple examiners. In the pre-clinical phase of the medical curriculum of the University Medical Centre Utrecht, an OSCE is organised as a medical consult. We evaluated the radiology station.MethodFour questions were formulated:
• What is the internal consistency of the items of the radiology station?
• How do the scores on the radiology station compare with the scores on the test excluding radiology?
• How do different cases differ in scores?
• What are the differences in score between the examiners?We analysed the OSCE results of second year medical students in 2004.ResultsTwo hundred and sixty-five students were examined in the OSCE in 2004. Ninty-three Students were examined in the radiology station. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the radiology station was 0.92. The average score for the radiology station was 3.8 (0.87). The average score for the test without radiology was 3.9 (0.32). The range of the average scores for the six different cases was 0.5 (3.6–4.1). The range of the average scores for the five examiners was 1.0 (3.3–4.3).ConclusionThe internal consistency of the items in the radiology station is good. The average score for the radiology station is similar to that of the other stations. The range of the scores between the different cases was relatively small. The range of the scores between the different examiners was clearly larger.