Integrative Review Literature on Objective Structured Clinical Examination and its implications in Nursing Education

Abstract

Background: One way to assess clinical competence of nursing students is the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Purposes: This article explores the use of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in undergraduate nursing education. The paper briefly reviews the utility of the OSCE as a strategy of measuring the clinical competence in nursing. It then offers a more 'in depth' reflection of the research literature pertaining to the students' perception on OSCE process, which acts as a basis when OSCE is used to assess nursing students. Methodology: A review of the nursing literature was conducted through an initial search of the computerized databases of CINAHL, Pub Med, Google Scholar and Medline with full text. The initial search identified 351 papers. The selected search criteria included English language articles written between 2005 and 2013. Sixteen studies (13 quantitative and 3 qualitative) were included for the review. Findings: The major findings reveal that OSCE is an effective tool for evaluation from faculty and student perspectives in all the studies. The key issues recognized include the complexity of the exam, time consumption, accelerated stress perception of the students and high cost in the conduction of the exam. Conclusion: Therefore there is high possibility for further research in this area, as well as the need for careful guidance regarding the standardization of future OSCE as well as the use of OSCE in all the specialties of nursing. We conclude that OSCEs can be used most effectively in nurse undergraduate curricula to assess safe practice in terms of performance of psychomotor skills, as well as the knowledge associated with their application.