Students' performance in the different clinical skills assessed in OSCE: what does it reveal?

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to compare students' performance in the different clinical skills (CSs) assessed in the objective structured clinical examination. Methods: Data for this study were obtained from final year medical students' exit examination (n = 185). Retrospective analysis of data was conducted using SPSS. Means for the six CSs assessed across the 16 stations were computed and compared. Results: Means for history taking, physical examination, communication skills, clinical reasoning skills (CRSs), procedural skills (PSs), and professionalism were 6.25 +/- 1.29, 6.39 +/- 1.36, 6.34 +/- 0.98, 5.86 +/- 0.99, 6.59 +/- 1.08, and 6.28 +/- 1.02, respectively. Repeated measures ANOVA showed there was a significant difference in the means of the six CSs assessed [F(2.980, 548.332) = 20.253, p < 0.001]. Pairwise multiple comparisons revealed significant differences between the means of the eight pairs of CSs assessed, at p < 0.05. Conclusions: CRSs appeared to be the weakest while PSs were the strongest, among the six CSs assessed. Students' unsatisfactory performance in CRS needs to be addressed as CRS is one of the core competencies in medical education and a critical skill to be acquired by medical students before entering the workplace. Despite its challenges, students must learn the skills of clinical reasoning, while clinical teachers should facilitate the clinical reasoning process and guide students' clinical reasoning development.