Assessment of Factors That Students Perceive to Affect Their Virtual Learning of Clinical Skills for OSCE

Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a vital examination that must be passed to graduate as a qualified doctor. The delivery of OSCE teaching was changed to an online format to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. Therefore, this study evaluates factors that students perceive to affect their virtual learning of clinical skills for OSCE.

In this cross-sectional study, all medical students from across the world who attended "The Respiratory Station" session delivered by OSCEazy (a medical student organization providing free online medical education) in the academic year 2020-2021 received an online questionnaire about their perceptions of this learning opportunity. The survey was created on Google™ forms and consisted of 5-point Likert scales as well as free-text boxes.

A total of 556 responses were received (mean age: 24, female: 76.6%). Most students agreed that online OSCE teaching offers more flexibility and convenience (median: 5, IQR: 4-5) but their likeliness to ask questions in either format was similar (median: 4, IQR: 3-5 vs median: 4, IQR: 3-4, p value: 0.94). The use of visual aids (median: 5, IQR: 4-5) and breakout rooms (median: 3, IQR: 2-4) were thought to enhance the quality of virtual OSCE teaching. The biggest concern about online teaching was access to a stable internet connection (69.1%).

The flexibility and convenience of virtual OSCE teaching enables the sharing of knowledge and skills to a wider audience and thus may be a very useful adjunct to face-to-face OSCE teaching in the future.