Running OSCEs places a demand on institutional staff and resources. The evolution of this assessment format to include VOSCE, where stations are assessed 'remotely' or even subsequent to the day of the assessment itself has the potential to greatly reduce the staffing burden at assessment times. Beyond this VOSCE has the potential to remove the Hawthorne effect of OSCE assessors and provide greater objectivity to the experience and scoring of candidates at the time of assessment as well as reducing the risk of assessor fatigue. Our results demonstrate that undergraduate medical students taking OSCEs as well as their assessors are aware of the effect, albeit unintentional; that an 'in the room' assessor can have. The potential to have even more contextually faithful scenarios involving multiple healthcare professioanls, that would serve to further augment the content validity of the assessment is also possible with VOSCEs.

The term VOSCE (Videotaped Objective Structured Clinical Examination) was coined by Vivekananda-Schmidt et al. (2007) following their work on the assessment of joint examiantion skills. From their study the authors identified VOSCE as possibly providing a ‘higher level of consistency’ and ‘better quality assurance’.

It has been reported that the presence of an assessor can lead to a Hawthorne effect whereby behaviour can be modified in response to the presence of the assessor and not the assessment itself (Kneebone et al. 2006). VOSCE offers a solution to this through remote assessment of candidates. Beyond this, the recording of assessments without the need for the traditional 'in the room' examiners offers the possibility of less labour intensive assessments.

Methods

• Semi-structured anonymous questionnaire with thematic analysis.

• Sampled those who had taken OSCEs (2^nd and 3^rd year pre-clinical undergraduate medical students; total of 306). Response rate of 13.4% with saturation in the responses.

• Sampled faculty who were experienced OSCE assessors (total of 25). Response rate of 68% with saturation in the responses.

Kneebone R et al. Assessing procedural skills in context: exploring the feasibility of an Integrated Procedural Performance Instrument (IPPI). Medical Education 2006;40: 1105-1114.

Ringsted C, Hodges B and Scherpbier A. ‘The research compass’: An introduction to research in medical education: AMEE Guide No. 56. Medical Teacher 2011;33:695-709.

Rudland J et al. “You can do it late at night or in the morning. You can do it at home, I did it with my flatmate.” The educational impact of an OSCE. Medical Teacher 2008; 30:206-211.

Sturpe D A et al. Scoring Objective Structured Clinical Examinations Using Video Monitors or Video Recordings. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2010;74(3): 1-5.