Nurse practitioner education: enhancing performance through the use of the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment

An Objective Structured Clinical Assessment (OSCA) was implemented in a graduate nurse practitioner (NP) program to determine the effect that participation in this type of clinical simulation would have on the cognitive and clinical competency of students. Based on the analysis of data, participation in the OSCA simulations did not lead to significantly better cognitive or clinical performance. Support for the OSCA was shown, however, by NP students when subjectively evaluating their experiences. All students agreed or strongly agreed that OSCA participation was a valuable learning experience and that the feedback provided was beneficial to their clinical and cognitive performance.