Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 3, 2026
Estimate the Cognitive Load Using Electrocardiographic Measure: A Human-AI Collaborative Task
Published on: December 5, 2025
A pilot study of the mental workload of objective structured clinical examination examiners
Aidan Byrne1, Nathan Tweed, Claire Halligan
1Institute of Medical Education, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Context:
Mental workload is a concept used in many industries to investigate operator performance, but it has only recently been used in the educational setting. It has been suggested that excessive mental workload in assessors may impair the validity of objective structured clinical examination (OSCE)-type assessments.
Objectives:
This study aimed to establish the feasibility of measuring the mental workload of examiners during an OSCE assessment and to establish methodologies and baseline values to guide future study design.
Methods:
Two previously validated methods of measuring mental workload, the NASA-Task Load Index rating scale and use of a secondary task (response to a prompt from a vibrotactile device), were used to measure the workload of 10 subjects during a formative OSCE. Trainee anaesthetists (n = 24) working in an operating theatre were used as a control group.
Results:
The mental workload of examiners exceeded that of controls on both measures. Although there was marked inter-subject variability, reliability between stations for individual examiners was robust (α = 0.922).
Conclusions:
These data suggest that mental workload is excessive in OSCE examiners. Further studies are required to measure the effect of changes in assessment design and examiner training.
More Related Videos
08:33A Cross-Disciplinary and Multi-Modal Experimental Design for Studying Near-Real-Time Authentic Examination Experiences
Published on: September 4, 2019
07:59Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory
Published on: June 14, 2019