Reliability and validity of the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment (OSCA) in undergraduate nursing program
Clinical assessment is the one of the essential components in assessing student’s competency in nursing curriculum. There are various types of clinical assessment to measure the competency level of skills in nursing students. Nevertheless, the reliability and validity of the assessment is still un...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Akademia Baru
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/53100/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/53100/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/53100/1/ARSBSV4_Said%201%20published.pdf |
| Summary: | Clinical assessment is the one of the essential components in assessing student’s competency
in nursing curriculum. There are various types of clinical assessment to measure the competency level
of skills in nursing students. Nevertheless, the reliability and validity of the assessment is still unclear
in the area of skill assessment, problem solving, knowledge and patient management. Objective
structure clinical Examination (OSCE) is a reliable and valid method in evaluating nursing students’
clinical skill. However, problems with regard the OSCEs appeared because the assessment only
focusing on the dexterity rather than focusing on the holistic care to the patient. Therefore, new method
approach, objective structure clinical assessment (OSCA) was established. This study sought to identify
the extent of reliability and validity of this OSCA assessment in the Faculty of Nursing at International
Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). The applicability of this assessment OSCA was also explored by
assessing immediate nursing students' feedback regarding this exam. A total of 53 nursing students
from the final year was drawn from a purposive random sampling. A self-developed checklist of
procedures and feedback questionnaire adapted from another well-known OSCA’s study was used as
research instruments. The results showed that there is a statistically significant positive correlation
between the two examiners in all stations (rs of station 1=0.968; p=0.0001, rs of station 2=0.811;
p=0.0001 and rsof station 3=0.728; p=0.005, rs of station 4=0.837; p= 0.003). Moreover, the reliability
of the OSCA stations was measured using Cronbach α to evaluate the internal consistency of each
station. The internal consistency of OSCA stations was statistically significant and highly reliable as
Cronbach α was higher than 0.7 in three stations among four exam stations. The findings indicated that
the OSCA examination was a reliable and valid method in assessing undergraduate nursing students.
The running cost of the OSCA is outweighed by the educational benefits, examiners’ satisfaction as well
as students’ satisfaction. |
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