title: Gender, sequence of cases and day effects on clinical skills assessment with standardized patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Clinical skills assessment using standardized patients (SPs) is an accepted method of professional testing, but some factors can threaten the validity of the scores obtained.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The main objective of this work was to test whether the gender of the patients, the sequence of cases and the day of the examination have any impact on the scores of the examinees.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data from examinations conducted at three Medical Schools are used. Each student encountered 10 different SPs (5 men and 5 women).
  
  
  METHODS
  Analysis of variance was used to test the existence of association between the variables.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed no significant differences or association between the scores and the three variables analysed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results are coherent with the studies that show that performance based examination using SPs can be used without introducing biases into students score.
authors.affiliation: Institut d'Estudis de la Salut, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gispert
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rué
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Roma
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Martinez-Carretero
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016544:Patient Simulation; D012737:Sex Factors