Comparative Effectiveness of OSCEs, Virtual OSCEs, and Traditional Written Testing Methods in Assessing Medical School Students’ Competencies: A Scoping Review Interim Report

Abstract

By the end of their medical school training, all physicians no matter which specialty they are heading for, must be competent to prescribe medications. Selecting and prescribing medications will be the most common therapeutic intervention they make in most careers. Multiple choice questions (MCQs), written answer questions, and standardized patients within Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) form the current backbone of medical and other health professional education assessment in Canada and internationally. However, OSCEs are very resource-intense, and written answer questions are used sparingly as they are time-consuming to mark. We will look at the following: which CanMEDS domains have OSCEs been shown to be a superior evaluation method compared to multiple choice or short/long answer written questions? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of virtual OSCEs (examinee, examiner, simulated patient all online and at distance from each other) compared to in-person OSCEs (all 3 in same room)?