The Cost of Components of a Fourth Year OSCE

The value of using Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) to assess clinical skills is widely accepted across medicine, nursing and veterinary programmes. The OSCE is seen as an extremely valuable tool which allows students to “show how” they would act in a clinical situation with good validity and reliability. Cost-effectiveness is one of the components of the assessment utility index, which defines the usefulness of an assessment as a product of its reliability, validity, cost-effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility and educational impact (van der Vleuten 1996). OSCEs are undoubtedly expensive for institutions who utilise them, especially as “high stakes” final exams. There is a lack of other assessment tools to assess clinical skills, so institutions should be encouraged to understand the costs associated to inform resource allocation and plan realistic economies. Running an OSCE is similar to running a theatre production: significant costs are seen in the development, production, administration and post-production phases (Reznick et al. 1993). We used Reznick et al.’s (1993) four phases of the OSCE process for categorising data: development, production, administration and post-examination reporting and analysis. At the University of Glasgow School of Veterinary Medicine, multiple years have summative OSCEs, but we focused on the three-day, 15- station, summative fourth year OSCE for students on the BVMS 5-year programme. The poster will outline some of the more interesting and thought-provoking findings. Are OSCE costs modifiable without jeopardising reliability or validity? What potential cost-saving changes can we make? Reznick R, Smee S, Baumber J, Cohen R, Rothman A, Blackmore D, Berard M. 1993. Guidelines for estimating the real cost of an objective structured clinical examination. Acad Med 68(7):513-517. Van der Vleuten V. 1996. The assessment of professional competence: Developments, research and practical implications. Ad Health Sci Educ 1:41-67

Development of a Faculty Learning Community to support Scholarship and Feedback

In an effort to explore the ideas of Scholarship of Learning and Teaching, and to comply with Glasgow’s University’s career development programme, a small group of academics from the College of Medicine, Veterinary and Life Sciences established a Learning Community. The LC has several aims: • To create and design a Learning Community to support scholarship and progression for lecturers on learning & teaching track • To understand how a Learning Community can be used to support staff on career development pathways • To empower participants to engage in the University’s career development programme through peer support and peer mentorship within the Learning Community • provide practical support for scholarship projects (it is hoped that all members will be supported to drive their scholarship ‘from idea to manuscript’) It is hoped that through the sharing of ideas, and collaboration between schools, the LC hope to publish and disseminate scholarship, and provide a series of recommendations regarding scholarship support. Planned scholarship outputs include papers in educational journals, conference abstracts and presentations, and a significant ambition to influence policy within the university regarding scholarship and career development

Can an Evaluation of Students’ Stress Levels Help us Manage Anxiety During OSCEs and Other Assessment Modalities?

With an increased awareness of mental health issues, in both the student population and the veterinary profession in general, it is important that we obtain a greater understating of the stress experienced by students so as to better prepare them to deal with stress and ameliorate any negative effects it may have on performance. This study aims to characterise various measurements of stress (e.g. HRV, EEG, cortisol, self-report questionnaire) in students within the School of Veterinary Medicine in familiar test modalities, focussing on OSCE assessment. We would also investigate how performance is impacted and what potential factors may influence stress levels. Ultimately, our aim would be to evaluate intervention strategies to assess if students stress levels and performance can be improved

Peer Assessment of Veterinary OSCEs

No abstract available

Peer Assessment of Veterinary OSCEs

No abstract available

How to Improve Your OSCEs

Glasgow Veterinary School has been successfully administering multiple formative and summative OSCEs for over 10 years. During this time, the introduction of a new curriculum and the considerable expansion of clinical skills teaching has led to an increased amount of time, staff experience, and training devoted to OSCEs. Glasgow’s Chief OSCE Examiners will be leading this workshop which is aimed at educators who are planning to introduce or expand OSCEs within their curriculum, or explore how other another institution runs their OSCEs. The workshop would provide useful advice on the following: Writing and Reviewing OSCE stations Choosing suitable OSCE stations for your institution How to choose and train assessors. Setting up and running a multiple station OSCE ILOs: By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to: Formulate an OSCE scenario Design and Run an OSCE using multiple station

How to Run a Successful OSCE with Peer Assessors

How to run a successful OSCE with peer assessors Glasgow Veterinary School administers multiple formative and summative OSCEs each year, costly in both time, and staff involvement. Clinical staff are reluctant to take time away from the hospitals to assess mock exams, so we recruit senior students to peer assess junior undergraduates during their formative OSCEs. In a recent internal study, >97% of Glasgow students highly rated the PAs’ ability to provide constructive feedback, believed they had been given helpful advice on improving future performance, and that they had been fairly assessed. Peer assessors believed that peer assessing would benefit them in their own OSCEs, because of their inside knowledge of the OSCE scenarios, and that they would feel more confident, and reported an increased understanding of the assessment process. Peer assessment of formative OSCEs has now been used successfully at Glasgow for several years. The workshop would provide useful advice on the following: How to choose your peer assessors How to train your peer assessors How to ensure peer assessment is accepted by your students How to run an OSCE entirely with peer assessors During the workshop we would plan to discuss the following questions:- Why should we use peer assessors? Who should they be? How do we train peer assessors? What do we include in the training? Is it acceptable to use peer assessors in summative exams? What are the Pros and Cons of peer assessment? What are the benefits of peer assessment for staff, students and peer assessors

Critical reflections of second-career veterinary nurse academics on the design and delivery of a novel online master’s programme

Critical reflection can help educators resolve some of the ambiguity, conflict, and complexity of their daily practice. It can support professional learning and may help practitioners to develop phronesis, or a wisdom of practice. The experiences of veterinary nurse educators and academics are hereto unexplored. This self-study research applies a nine dimensions of critical reflection model to analyse the experiences of two second-career academics during the development and delivery of a novel online veterinary nursing master’s programme. Critical friend conversations and contemporary records were utilised in the data analysis and interpretation. For the academics, professional and personal tensions were resolved around quality of teaching, student engagement, legitimate knowledge, and hierarchy. Students benefitted from being taught by reflexive individuals who were willing to receive feedback, respond actively to make changes to learning and teaching, and who sought to understand the challenges they faced. The model of inquiry supported engagement in reflection as a means of professional development and knowledge creation and could be utilised by other educators and academics

OSCEs – ‘O’ is for the overall stress that I feel!

Glasgow Vet School has been using the Objective Structured Clinical Examination to assess practical skills since 1994. Senior academic staff responsible for the co-ordination of the OSCEs in undergraduate years I to IV report anecdotally that students’ stress levels in the OSCE exams seem to be markedly higher than in more traditional written exams. In 2019, it was decided that station titles would be released the night before the OSCE with the aim of alleviating the stress and anxiety surrounding not knowing which skills would be assessed each day. However, there has been only minimal student feedback to support that this had a positive impact on stress levels. In an effort to address this, the authors decided to investigate students’ perception of stress levels in different types of examination within the curriculum; the impact of releasing station titles; what factors during OSCEs contribute to stress and potential methods to mitigate this stress. In February 2023, during the BVMS IV summative OSCE, 141 fourth year undergraduates were asked to fill in a mixed methods questionnaire to explore OSCE stress. Findings reveal that students find the OSCE marginally more stressful than written examinations, and students are less stressed when they know the station titles of the OSCES the night before. Factors contributing to OSCE stress include the timing of revision sessions, the waiting room environment and assessor non-verbal communication. Suggestions for alleviating stress include implementing strategies to improve the exam waiting room environment, addressing assessor non-verbal communication and prioritising summative OSCE year groups: revision sessions, appropriate lecture scheduling, and formative training

Client Satisfaction With Veterinary Nurse Consultations in a Corporate Small Animal Practice Group

Client satisfaction is an important element of veterinary interactions, alongside clinical outcomes and patient wellbeing. The questionnaire provided a way to measure client satisfaction outcomes in a means to measure RVN proficiency in the consultation process. This method could be used in the reflective process to measure improvement in consultation methods