OBJECTIVE MULTI-STATION CLINICAL EVALUATION IN PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY. CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND PERCEPTION

Abstract

Background : multi-station objective clinical evaluation (MSOCE) is an equitable and genuine formative and normative assessment tool that is deemed relevant to its effectiveness, reliability and validity in clinical evaluation. However, no experience with its application in pathological anatomy has been published.
Aim : The aim of the present study was to carry out a critical analysis and a perceptual study of the MSOCE in pathological anatomy in medical students.
Methods : This was a cross-sectional, multicenter prospective study in which we developed and tested a MSOCE on 32 medical students of the 1st year of the second cycle of medical studies. Docimological analysis of the 12 stations and the 28 questions of the different stations was done by the file "AnItem.xls".
Results : The mean total score obtained at the MSOCE was 36.2/50 (range : 29 to 41). The majority of stations were of acceptable difficulty (92%) and of poor discrimination (92%). The majority of questions were easy (57%) with poor discrimination (75% of the total questions). One question on 28 was "ideal", 4%. The MSOCE had a large heterogeneity (average Cronbach alpha of 0.29), and discriminated well between the average students (platykurtic, left-spread, negatively asymmetric distribution curve). The perception analysis showed that 27 students (84%) were satisfied with the OMSCE and thought that it was close to the reality of the clinical training.
Conclusion  : The OMSCE tested was easy and discriminated mostly between average students. It was well perceived by the students and close to the reality of the clinical training.
Ongoing analysis will further improve the quality of MSOCE.