Summative assessment of under graduate medical student's performance in physiology by structured oral examination

To evaluate the importance and efficiency of structured oral examination (SOE). This is a retrospective study, has been designed to compare the newly adopted structured oral examination (SOE) with that of the traditional oral examination (TOE). This study was conducted at the department of physiology during the year 2006, on 607 2nd year medical students of Mymensingh Medical College and 106 students from some other medical colleges who appeared in the first professional examination under Dhaka University from 2003-2006. For this purpose, scores achieved by the students in physiology in first professional examination for 4 successive years (2003-2006) were analyzed. The examinations in (2003-2004) and (2005-2006) were conducted under TOE and SOE respectively. Mean score achieved in SOE and TOE was 67+/-.02 and 57+/-.003 respectively. The difference is statistically significant. The pass percentage in SOE is 94.70% and 90.3% in TOE and the difference is significant. Maximum number of students in SOE attained score in the range of 60-69 but in TOE scores attained by maximum frequency fall in the range of 50-59. This observation indicates improvement in student's performance by quality and success rate in SOE. Therefore SOE is a more effective, skill full technique and superior to TOE in assessing student's competency and cognitive ability. The need and skill of SOE over the TOE in assessing oral part of examination has been proved.