Effect of a Formative Objective Structured Clinical Examination on the Clinical Performance of Undergraduate Medical Students in a Summative Examination: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objective: To study the effect of formative Objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) on the undergraduate medical students' performance in a subsequent summative-OSCE assessment.

Methods: In a randomized single-blind trial, 130 fifth year medical students at Raparin hospital, Erbil were assigned to intervention (n=61) and control group (n=69). Formative-OSCE was performed for the intervention group in pediatric module with feedback on their performance versus standard pediatric module for the control group. Students' clinical performance was assessed by a summative-OSCE. Multiple regression was used to predict the summative-OSCE score depending on the participation in formative-OSCE along with the other factors.

Results: Eleven students were excluded because of early drop-out, leaving 119 students for analysis. The summative-OSCE mean score (out of a total score of 100) in intervention group 64.6 (10.91) was significantly lower as compared to the control group 69.2 (10.45).

Conclusion: Single formative-OSCE does not necessarily lead to better performance in subsequent summative-OSCE.