Videotapes for undergraduate psychiatry examinations: Part I--Production and assessment

In this paper the production is described of two videotaped clinical examinations for use in assessing the ability of medical students to observe, name and interpret psychopathology. The method of preparing the videotape is described in detail and data are presented concerning the ability of each item to respond to knowledge and skills acquired during the clerkship, as well as the item-whole correlations for each text item. Examination of the changes in scores over the course of the clerkship and item-whole correlations led to a reappraisal of teaching in certain topic areas.