Acta Biomedica Scientia

STRUCTURED ORAL EXAMINATION VERSUS TRADITIONAL VIVA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AMONG FIRST-YEAR MEDICAL STUDENTS IN PHYSIOLOGY

Dr. Devi Priya T, Blessy V

Structured Oral Examination, Medical Education Assessment, Student Feedback, Standardization Reliability.

In many medical centers, people still use a conventional oral test to assess patients, but it has drawbacks since it is not standardized, objective or as reliable as other methods. Because several faculty members participate, the examination may take varying amounts of time and cover different types of material for each student. By arranging oral exams following a routine format, their effectiveness as assessment tools goes up. We designed the current study to introduce a structured oral exam (SOE) for medical students in Physiology and to examine the process using feedback from both students and faculty. The usual first-year oral exam was used to evaluate all 100 students. By using a questionnaire with Likert items, we assigned values to all answers provided by the workers. The faculty picked the main themes for the oral exam. Students were told ahead of time how the viva would take place. The faculty compiled a list of specific questions and the matching answers for the planned interview which were checked and confirmed together beforehand. The students were surveyed again after the examination to obtain their experiences. Using a t-test, we analyzed the data from the survey using pairs of data. The answers to the questionnaires indicated that students enjoyed structured oral exams more and found them better than former tests. A difference was found to exist (p=0.0001) in the way questions were asked, lessons covered and the decrease in student anxiety between both approaches. Many professors believe that using a planned system for oral examinations avoids bias, relies less on luck and results in unified, fair questions. Making the oral examination part of the exam process may help it become a superior evaluation method, especially as the blueprint continues to improve.