Abstract
Background: The educational process in different medical schools has been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. As a part of the Saudi government’s attempts to contain the spread of the virus, schools’ and universities’ educational activities and face-to-face lectures have been modified to virtual classrooms. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of the faculty and the students of an electronic objective structured clinical examination (E-OSCE) activity that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic in the oldest medical school in Saudi Arabia. Methods: An e-OSCE style examination was designed for the final-year medical students by the pediatrics department, College of Medicine at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The examination was administered by Zoom™ video conferencing where both students and faculty participated through their laptop or desktop computers. In order to explore the students’ and the faculty’s perceptions about this experience, a newly designed 13-item online questionnaire was administered at the end of the e-OSCE. Results: Out of 136 participants (23 faculty and 112 students), 73 respondents (e.g., 54% response rate) filled out the questionnaire. Most of the respondents (69.8%) were very comfortable with this new virtual experience. Most participants (53.4%) preferred the e-OSCE compared to the classic face-to-face clinical OSCE during the pandemic. Regarding the e-OSCE assessment student tool, 46.6% reported that it is similar to the classic face-to-face OSCE; however, 38.4% felt it was worse. Conclusions: The e-OSCE can be a very effective alternative to the classic face-to-face OSCE due to the current circumstances that still pose a significant risk of infection transmission. Future studies should examine different virtual strategies to ensure effective OSCE delivery from the perspective of both faculty and students.
Highlights
The educational process throughout the different undergraduate and graduate medical institutes has been immensely disrupted due to the concern of COVID-19 infection transmission as well as the precautionary lockdown and other preventive actions that have been taken to contain the pandemic worldwide [1]
Out of 136 participants in the pediatric e-objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) who were invited to participate in the questionnaire upon the completion of the examination, 73 individuals (23 faculty and 50 students) filled out the questionnaire (54% response rate)
Most participants preferred the electronic Objective Structured Clinical Examination (e-OSCE) over the classic face-to-face OSCE (53.4%) or did not prefer classic face-to-face (15.1%)
Summary
The educational process throughout the different undergraduate and graduate medical institutes has been immensely disrupted due to the concern of COVID-19 infection transmission as well as the precautionary lockdown and other preventive actions that have been taken to contain the pandemic worldwide [1]. Our objective was to examine the perceptions of students and faculty on the implementation of e-OSCE during COVID-19 lockdown in King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The perceptions of the fifth-year medical students as well as their faculty members who participated in assessing their performance in the pediatric e-OSCE delivered through ZoomTM teleconferencing platform (Zoom Video Communication, Inc., San Jose, CA, USA) at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were explored using a newly developed online-based questionnaire. The steps taken to prepare and conduct this new virtual experiment in the oldest medical school in Saudi Arabia are described
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