Validation Practices of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)

Abstract

The Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) is widely used in the assessment of clinical competence and the interpersonal skills of medical students and residents. The goals of this chapter were to examine (a) the validation practices of the OSCE, and (b) the extent to which the reported validity evidence conforms to contemporary views of validity theory. A total of 22 articles were found that explicitly position themselves as validation studies of the OSCE. As a general finding, the most frequently reported sources of validity evidence were construct (59.1 %) and content (40.9 %) validity. The remaining sources of validity evidence were reported less frequently. There was a difference between what authors’ reported as validity evidence to what might be classified as validity using the Test Standards. The implications of these findings and direction for future validation studies are discussed with an eye toward investigating OSCE in line with contemporary views of validity and validation.