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Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are routinely used in healthcare education programs. Traditionally, students undertake OSCEs as face-to-face interactions to assess competency in soft skills. Due to physical distancing restrictions during COVID-19, alternative methods were required...

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Autores principales: Mak, Vivienne, Krishnan, Sunanthiny, Chuang, Sara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871798/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206942
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10020328
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author Mak, Vivienne
Krishnan, Sunanthiny
Chuang, Sara
author_facet Mak, Vivienne
Krishnan, Sunanthiny
Chuang, Sara
author_sort Mak, Vivienne
collection PubMed
description Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are routinely used in healthcare education programs. Traditionally, students undertake OSCEs as face-to-face interactions to assess competency in soft skills. Due to physical distancing restrictions during COVID-19, alternative methods were required. This study utilized a mixed-method design (online survey and interviews) to evaluate second-year pharmacy students’ and examiners’ experiences of their first virtual OSCEs in Australia. A total of 196 students completed their first virtual OSCE in June 2020 of which 190 students completed the online survey. However, out of the 190 students, only 88% (n = 167) consented to the use of the data from their online survey. A further 10 students and 12 examiners were interviewed. Fifty-five students (33%) who participated in the online survey strongly agreed or agreed that they preferred the virtual experience to face-to-face OSCEs while 44% (n = 73) neither agreed nor disagreed. Only 20% (n = 33) felt more anxious with the virtual OSCEs. Additionally, thematic analysis found non-verbal communication as a barrier during the OSCE. Positive aspects about virtual OSCEs included flexibility, decreased levels of anxiety and relevance with emerging telehealth practice. The need for remote online delivery of assessments saw innovative ways of undertaking OSCEs and an opportunity to mimic telehealth. While students and examiners embraced the virtual OSCE process, face-to-face OSCEs were still considered important and irreplaceable. Future opportunities for OSCEs to be delivered both face-to-face and virtually should be considered.
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spelling pubmed-88717982022-02-25 Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic Mak, Vivienne Krishnan, Sunanthiny Chuang, Sara Healthcare (Basel) Article Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are routinely used in healthcare education programs. Traditionally, students undertake OSCEs as face-to-face interactions to assess competency in soft skills. Due to physical distancing restrictions during COVID-19, alternative methods were required. This study utilized a mixed-method design (online survey and interviews) to evaluate second-year pharmacy students’ and examiners’ experiences of their first virtual OSCEs in Australia. A total of 196 students completed their first virtual OSCE in June 2020 of which 190 students completed the online survey. However, out of the 190 students, only 88% (n = 167) consented to the use of the data from their online survey. A further 10 students and 12 examiners were interviewed. Fifty-five students (33%) who participated in the online survey strongly agreed or agreed that they preferred the virtual experience to face-to-face OSCEs while 44% (n = 73) neither agreed nor disagreed. Only 20% (n = 33) felt more anxious with the virtual OSCEs. Additionally, thematic analysis found non-verbal communication as a barrier during the OSCE. Positive aspects about virtual OSCEs included flexibility, decreased levels of anxiety and relevance with emerging telehealth practice. The need for remote online delivery of assessments saw innovative ways of undertaking OSCEs and an opportunity to mimic telehealth. While students and examiners embraced the virtual OSCE process, face-to-face OSCEs were still considered important and irreplaceable. Future opportunities for OSCEs to be delivered both face-to-face and virtually should be considered. MDPI 2022-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8871798/ /pubmed/35206942 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10020328 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Mak, Vivienne
Krishnan, Sunanthiny
Chuang, Sara
Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Students’ and Examiners’ Experiences of Their First Virtual Pharmacy Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort students’ and examiners’ experiences of their first virtual pharmacy objective structured clinical examination (osce) in australia during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871798/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206942
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10020328
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