| Summary: | Background: A uniform and reliable clinical and practical evaluation of medical students is always desirable. The method of objective structured practical examination (OSPE)/objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) tests the students on what they can do rather than what they know. This method is now believed to meet the deficiencies of the conventional system of practical/clinical examination.
Aims: The aim of the present study is to take the perceptions and opinions of the medical education training (MET)-trained faculty regarding OSCE/OSPE, and their interest in introducing it as an assessment tool.
Materials and Methods: This is a detailed, structured questionnaire study carried out in Government Medical College, Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh, India in the period from May 2014 to July 2014 and was conducted on 50 members of MET-trained faculty.
Results: Among the faculty, 96% agreed that it was a good and useful learning methodology; 98% agreed that it was a good assessment tool; 100% agreed that it assessed all the three domains; 80% agreed that it was a transparent, comprehensive, and fair assessment tool, 90% were of the opinion that it was mentally and physically taxing and required additional faculty hours to construct, review, and implement the arrangement of stations initially; 100% agreed that the combination with classical practical examination (CPE) produced good results; and 84% responded that it could partially replace CPE.
Conclusion: We conclude that any change must first be thoroughly evaluated before it can uproot a well-defined and time-tested assessment methodology. OSCE/OSPE has several distinct advantages. In the current situation, it may be realistic to expect its inclusion in the evaluation schedule of universities and in day-to-day assessment of students to improve their clinical competence.
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