Abstract
BACKGROUND: The assessment of undergraduate medical students consists of a written component and an advanced clinical competency test that evaluates the students' skills. The Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) were only implemented in most medical schools in the last ten years, similar in many developing countries. It was first used with other clinical assessment methods. This study was designed to investigate how medical students in the fourth and sixth grades and examiners perceived the unique format, features, and quality of the Grand Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (GOSCE), a novel method for assessing students. The aim was to understand how this innovative method, distinct from traditional assessment methods, prepares students for real-world scenarios where they encounter different specialty cases. Additionally, the study aimed to understand the significant role and challenges faced by the Faculty of General Medicine at Koya University in implementing this type of OSCE and to identify potential improvements to enhance the quality of the assessment process. METHODS: Following the administration of two distinct GOSCE examinations for the fourth and sixth stages, feedback forms were created using Google Forms and distributed to students and examiners. The feedback forms covered all aspects of the examination process. The responses were then rigorously analyzed using the scientific tool SPSS, allowing for a comparison between students from both stages and the faculty and external examiners. RESULTS: In the survey of 104 undergraduate students (78% of attendants), the majority (84n,80%) rated the fairness of the assessment as good, which is the primary goal of GOSCE. A large percentage (89n,85.6%) agreed that the examination covered a wide range of clinical skills. Eighty students (76.85%) believed the patients cooperated and found the findings precise; on the other hand, The obtained responses from 24 out of 33 faculty staff members (75%) and 29 out of 35 external examiners (82%) strongly agreed that the examination adequately covered a wide variety of clinical abilities. Only two of 68 examiners (2.9%) believed the examination needed more to provide a learning opportunity. CONCLUSION: With the insightful suggestions for improvement provided by the participants, GOSCE has a promising potential to evolve into a fair, objective clinical tool for assessing medical students, instilling a sense of optimism for its future development.