title: Can student tutors act as examiners in an objective structured clinical examination?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The dissemination of objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) is hampered by requirements for high levels of staffing and a significantly higher workload compared with multiple-choice examinations. Senior medical students may be able to support faculty staff to assess their peers. The aim of this study is to assess the reliability of student tutors as OSCE examiners and their acceptance by their peers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a checklist and a global rating, teaching doctors (TDs) and student tutors (STs) simultaneously assessed students in basic clinical skills at 4 OSCE stations. The inter-rater agreement between TDs and STs was calculated by kappa values and paired t-tests. Students then completed a questionnaire to assess their acceptance of student peer examiners.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All 214 Year 3 students at the University of Göttingen Medical School were evaluated in spring 2005. Student tutors gave slightly better average grades than TDs (differences of 0.02-0.20 on a 5-point Likert scale). Inter-rater agreement at the stations ranged from 0.41 to 0.64 for checklist assessment and global ratings; overall inter-rater agreement on the final grade was 0.66. Most students felt that assessment by STs would result in the same grades as assessment by TDs (64%) and that it would be similarly objective (69%). Nearly all students (95%) felt confident that they could evaluate their peers themselves in an OSCE.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  On the basis of our results, STs can act as examiners in summative OSCEs to assess basic medical skills. The slightly better grades observed are of no practical concern. Students accepted assessment performed by STs.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany. jchenot@gwdg.de
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Chenot
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Simmenroth-Nayda
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Scherer
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Emmert
authors.forename: Beate
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stanske
authors.forename: Michael M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Kochen
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Himmel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D010380:Peer Review; D013337:Students, Medical; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*