Introduction of Structured Oral Examination as A Novel Assessment tool to First Year Medical Students in Physiology

Background: The traditional viva examination which is still predominantly used in most of the medical institutions as one of the assessment methods has some demerits like lack of standardization, objectivity & reliability. The process involves many faculty members from respective departments. Hence there can be variations in the time allotted to each student, number of questions asked, and difficulty level of the questions. These can be resolved by structuring the oral examination to make it a better assessment tool. The present study was conducted to introduce structured oral examination (SOE) as a novel assessment tool to first year M.B.B.S. students in Physiology and evaluating the process by taking feedback from the students and faculty. Material and Methods: All the subjects [first year M.B.B.S. students (n=100)] were initially assessed by traditional viva. Feedback in the form of a questionnaire was collected from the students. Questionnaire included various questions based on Likert scale and numerical value for each response was decided. Topic for the structured oral examination was decided by the faculty members. Students were intimated about the viva process well in advance. A checklist of questions to be asked in the structured viva was prepared and their probable/ most correct answers were discussed with the faculty in advance. Feedback was again collected from the students after the viva session. Statistical analysis of the questionnaire was done using 'paired t-test'. Results: Questionnaire analysis depicted that students were overall satisfied with the structured viva and felt it better than the traditional viva. Statistically significant differences (p=0.0001) were observed in terms of uniformity of questions asked, syllabus coverage, reduction in the anxiety levels etc. between these two assessment methods. Faculty members also expressed that structured oral examinations are better in terms of reducing bias, minimising luck factor and uniformity of questions makes SOE a fair assessment tool. Conclusion: Structured oral examination can be a better assessment tool and with some modifications in blueprinting it will be acceptable to the students as well as faculty.