OTnews May 2024 | Page 37

Student education

Feature

Assessing practice competence

Sarah Prior reflects on the recent success of an observed structured clinical examination for first year BSc occupational therapy students at London South Bank University .

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P

ositive student experience is a very important part of occupational therapy education at London South Bank University ( LSBU ). There are a wide range of assessment types to meet the needs of all students , including simulated discussions with a patient . The assessment processes are clinically relevant and aim to improve the students ’ practice skills .

Observed structured clinical examinations ( OSCEs ) are designed to assess practice competence . They are widely used in medicine and in many allied health professional courses , but are not so commonly used in occupational therapy programmes .

An early occupational therapy publication , by Edwards and Martin ( 1989 ), evaluated the use of an OSCE assessment for knowledge of theory and physical movement . Occupational therapy OSCEs usually follow the commonly used structure of a series of timed stations to assess physical practice skills .

Krusen and Rollins ( 2019 ) designed an occupational therapy OSCE following this format for students before practice placement . O ’ Brien and McNeil ( 2013 ) also recommend structured and specific OSCE assessments for occupational therapy students before placement and specifically suggest the OSCE is conducted before the start of their second practice placement .

This guidance , along with feedback from stakeholders asking for students to have more practice with initial interviews before going out on their second placement , was used to develop the BSc occupational therapy OSCE at LSBU .

Changing the assessment

A strength of the occupational therapy courses at LSBU is that , as well as the necessity for students to pass the practice placement , every practice placement has an associated academic

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