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Comparison of Error Rates in Technical Skills and Contextual Skills in a Large-Scale Peer-Assessed Clinical Skills
David Alexander Christian Messerer1, Oliver Keis2, Astrid Horneffer2
1Institute of Transfusion Medicine, University Hospital Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
Abstract:
Training of clinical skills often prioritizes technical performance, while contextual skills such as hygienic practice, communication, and documentation receive less systematic attention. In a large-scale peer-assessed examination, third-year medical students completed examination encounters (n = 2,076) using a standardized 20-item binary checklist with predefined allocations to technical and contextual skills. Error rates were low but variable in both categories (technical: 10% (5%; 15%); contextual: 0% (0%; 17%), median with interquartile range). These findings support integrating contextual competence into structured skills education and suggest that brief, checklist-based assessments may reveal actionable deficits in hygiene and documentation that would otherwise remain implicit.
Supplementary Information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-026-02764-x.
