Abstract:

The Objective Standardised Clinical Evaluation (OSCE) is a face-to-face test, which was first described by R. Harden in 1975, to determine the degree of acquisition of technical and non-technical (e.g., communication) clinical competences of undergraduate medical students. This kind of test is at the apex of the Miller pyramid, only below direct observation of examinees.

OSCE tests assess student performance in professional situations, each of which is an assessable competence station. The number of stations for each student can vary, depending on the academic stage, from around 20 at the end of the degree down to about six at intermediate stages. OSCE conduct is a complex endeavour because assessment must be as objective as possible and therefore the tests should be scrupulously structured. OSCE tests typically involve many standardised patients in various situations, in which they must act objectively. Students should be assessed equally, experiencing the same clinical situations.

The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point in the use of learning platforms such as Moodle. Generally speaking, face-to-face OSCEs were cancelled during this period and few universities, such as our own, sought to attempt them in an online format, maintaining their main characteristics. Such an adaptation required a management and assessment platform suited to an online transformation of the OSCE.

This paper describes the use of Moodle as an assessment and data processing platform for OSCE tests through a retrospective-descriptive analysis. A pilot was developed during the 2019-2020 academic year and was subsequently replicated with minor improvements in four further sessions. Over this period 365 students and 84 standardised patients took part in the tests. As many as 1800 individual tests were carried out for each OSCE session. All results were processed and consolidated in under two weeks.

Our experience suggests that Moodle is a versatile online platform well suited to management of OSCE tests. It has allowed us to deal with complex logistics and simultaneous data collection securely, while also facilitating immediate assessment processing.

Keywords:

OSCE, competences assessment, medical students, Moodle.