Does sharing information before a clinical skills examination impact student performance?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Assessment in Health Professions Education

Background:

• Clinical performance examinations (CPX) are administered over multiple sessions, posing security risks.
• Student information sharing can compromise examination integrity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of medical students sharing information on their CPX scores.
• To determine if prior knowledge or information exchange influences examination performance.

Main Methods:

• Administered questionnaires on prior diagnosis knowledge and information sharing.
• Categorized students based on prior knowledge or information sharing.
• Analyzed the impact of these factors on CPX scores.

Main Results:

• Over 54% of students received information before the CPX, often in printed form.
• A significant portion of students believed prior knowledge was helpful.
• No statistical difference in CPX scores was observed between groups.

Conclusions:

• Information sharing among students before CPX has a negligible effect on scores.
• CPX effectively assesses applied knowledge and demonstrated skills.
• The study underscores the validity of CPX in evaluating medical competencies.