Is Cronbach's alpha sufficient for assessing the reliability of the OSCE for an internal medicine course?

Background: The number of medical students accepted into medical programs is increasing, which has made the traditional long/short case style of examination difficult to conduct. At Dammam University, the program is shifting to the use of the Objective Structural Clinical Examination (OSCE), which may solve some of these difficulties, including issues with reliability, validity index and exam duration.

Results: A pilot study was conducted over one semester.