Examiners’ Perceptions in Surgical Education: The Blind Spot in the Assessment of OSCEs

Abstract

Interpreting objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) scores remains a challenging task.1 It remains unclear how examiners make a decision to score an OSCE the way they do. The examiners' thoughts and decision-making processes remain a hidden part of the OSCE assessment. One cannot assume that all examiners have a shared belief about what is important in an OSCE or what is the aim of an OSCE assessment. These differences are problematic, since they lead to students not getting the 'correct' score for their OSCE. Using a qualitative case study design,2 this study aims to gain in-depth insight into examiners' perceptions of OSCEs and their role as an examiner. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews with OSCE observers (n = 6) were conducted. The results show that the perception of examiners on the aim of OSCES and their motivation and task as examiner are crucial in understanding the differences among OSCE scores of examiners. Training and discussion among the examiners are needed to decrease the differences among the OSCE scores of examiners.