Nursing students' experiences of professional competence evaluation by Objective Structured Clinical examination method: a qualitative content analysis study

BackgroundClinical education is a significant part of medical education, and paying attention to clinical evaluation is important. One of the challenges in the teaching-learning process is evaluating students' performance. Learners, as the main stakeholders of the educational system, may have different experiences of evaluation quality. Awareness of these experiences is effective in improving the quality of clinical evaluation. Therefore, this study was conducted to "explore the experiences of nursing students for evaluation of professional competence by using the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE)".MethodThis study was conducted with a qualitative descriptive research approach and conventional content analysis method in 2022-2024. The participants included 12 undergraduate nursing students at Maragheh University of Medical Sciences, who were selected by purposeful sampling, and their experiences were collected using semi-structured and in-depth interviews until reaching data saturation.ResultsThe data analysis of the interviews led to the extraction of 268 primary codes, 7 subcategories, 2 categories, and 1 theme: "Credibility and stability". The category "Exam's accuracy in measuring competence " included 3 sub-categories: "Challenges in objective adaptation ", " Communication and organizational challenges for exam preparation " and " Inadequate simulation of stations and exam environment ", and the category " Exam power for repeatability" included 4 sub-categories: " Characteristics of the students ", " Lack of evaluators' skills and mastery ", " Inefficiency of the evaluation tool " and " Disturbance in executive affairs".ConclusionsOSCE can be used in self-evaluation, creating motivation and strengthening different dimensions of students' learning, as well as discovering weaknesses and strengths for planning by managers and faculties. According to the results of this study, many factors such as management before and during the exam, characteristics of the evaluators, prevailing educational conditions in the faculty, and the method of clinical training are effective in achieving the "reliability and sustainability" required in the OSCE.