Perception of Medical and Nursing Students Plus Clinical Instructors Towards Objective Structured Clinical Examination : A Case Study of Five Health Training Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study explored the perception of medical and nursing students and clinical instructors Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in five sub-Saharan African health training institutions (Uganda, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia). We used questionnaires among 686 students and 46 clinical instructors, focused group discussions, and key informant interviews to find out their perception. Both students and clinical instructors mostly preferred OSCE because it is fair, organized, and tests real healthcare skills more than the conventional methods like long case. But students said the time on some stations was too short, stressful, and noted challenges during OSCE such as lack of some materials on some stations. Teachers agreed that OSCE is helpful but hard to do due to insufficient staffing and space. Both suggested more practice sessions through Pre OSCE, better training for teachers, and feedback to help students improve. The study confirms that OSCE is the most efficient way to evaluate nursing and medical students, however the study also highlights that a mixed method evaluation would be the best option for evaluation of clinical competence.