Authors

  1. Clark, Carol A.

Medical schools' use of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for over 30 years proves the OSCE is an objective way to assess a variety of clinical skills. This pilot study determined the feasibility of using OSCE, together with a checklist tool, to evaluate nurse practitioner (NP) students' competency in obtaining a patient's health history and performing a complete physical examination. In this descriptive study, four NP faculty viewed a prerecorded OSCE video of a student/ patient encounter and scored it using a checklist to determine the student's competency. Faculty showed a strong degree of agreement in grading competence. Findings suggest OSCEs could be an effective means of student evaluation, but revising the checklist to align with NP national competencies would make it meaningful for NP evaluation specifically.