2012; 34: e242–e250
WEB PAPER
Using an objective structured video exam to
identify differential understanding of aspects
of communication skills
DANIELLE A. BARIBEAU1, ILYA MUKOVOZOV1, THOMAS SABLJIC2, KEVIN W. EVA3 &
CARL B. DELOTTINVILLE2
1
University of Toronto, Canada, 2McMaster University, Canada, 3University of British Columbia, Canada
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Abstract
Background: Effective communication in health care is associated with patient satisfaction and improved clinical outcomes.
Professional schools increasingly incorporate communication training into their curricula. The objective structured video exam
(OSVE) is a video-based examination that provides an economical way of assessing students’ knowledge of communication skills.
This study presents a scoring strategy that enables blueprinting of an OSVE to consensus guidelines, to determine which aspects
of communication skills create the most difficulty for students to understand and to what degree understanding improves through
experiential communication skills training.
Methods: Five interactions between a healthcare professional and client were scripted and filmed using standardized patients.
The dialogues were mapped onto the Kalamazoo consensus statement by having five communication experts view each video and
identify effective and ineffective use of communication skills. Undergraduate students enrolled in a communications course
completed an OSVE on three occasions.
Results: A total of 79 students completed at least one testing session. The scores assigned supported the validity of the scoring
strategy as an indication of knowledge growth. Considerable variability was observed across Kalamazoo sub-domains.
Conclusion: With further refining, this scoring approach may prove useful for educators to tailor their education and assessment
practices to specific consensus guidelines.
Introduction
Practice points
Training in communication skills has been shown to improve
clinical competence and interviewing skills in a variety of
health care disciplines (Aspregen 1999; Yedidia et al. 2003;
Haak et al. 2008). That being said, the intangible nature
of communication skills creates a challenge for curriculum
development and competence assessment. Evaluations of
student communication skills during Objective Structured
Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) have shown that communication skills vary on a case-by-case basis thus necessitating
that a series of observations be collected (Kroboth et al.
1992; Hodges et al. 1996; Boulet et al. 1998; Guiton et al. 2004).
Repeated evaluations using the OSCE format place a high
demand on financial resources.
An offshoot of the OSCE, the objective structured video
exam (OSVE), is a video-based written examination that
provides an efficient and economical way of assessing a
student’s knowledge of communication skills in a classroom
setting (Humphris & Kaney 2000). With this technique,
students are typically asked to watch a series of interactions
on video between a doctor and a patient. The videos are
followed by written questions, designed to assess the students’
ability to identify, understand, or critique the communication
. Knowledge of communication skills increases through
an experiential approach to learning.
. The OSVE is a cost effective way of measuring relative
strengths and weaknesses in knowledge of communication skills.
. Training for novices should focus on the development of
patient-centered communication skills and on how to
recognize and improve ineffective communication.
skills portrayed in the video. Evaluation forms have taken on
a variety of formats, including multiple choice and short
answer questioning (Hulsman et al. 2006; Simpson et al. 2006).
A variety of programs have incorporated an OSVE into their
curricula (e.g., Simpson et al. 2006), but the validity of the tool
as an assessment instrument has not been studied extensively
(Humphris & Kaney 2000, 2001; Humphris 2002; Hulsman
et al. 2006).
With respect to curriculum development, the literature
supports an experiential approach to communication skills
training, in which students learn by interacting with real or
standardized patients (SPs), while receiving feedback from
Correspondence: C. B. deLottinville, Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program, MDCL-3316, Faculty of Medicine, McMaster University, 1200
Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8N 3Z5, Canada. Email: carl.delottinville@learnlink.mcmaster.ca
Danielle A. Baribeau, Ilya Mukovozov and Thomas Sabljic contributed equally to this article
e242
ISSN 0142–159X print/ISSN 1466–187X online/12/040242–9 ß 2012 Informa UK Ltd.
DOI: 10.3109/0142159X.2012.660213
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Objective structured video exam
Figure 1. Kalamazoo consensus statement tasks (bold face) and skills adapted for the undergraduate level with assigned coding
number for use in OSVE scoring.
instructors (Knowles et al. 2001; Shaw 2006; Von Fragstein
et al. 2008). Curriculum development can now be guided by
expert consensus and written guidelines that describe specific
communication skills. For example, in 1999, leaders in the field
of medical education agreed upon a set of essential communication skills and tasks, entitled The Kalamazoo consensus
statement, which has since served as a framework for
communication skills training (Makoul 2001). In short, the
framework highlights the following seven essential elements
or tasks as being fundamental to clinical communication:
(1) building a relationship, (2) opening the discussion,
(3) gathering information, (4) understanding the patient’s
perspective, (5) sharing information, (6) reaching agreement
on problems and plans, and (7) providing closure. Specific
skill sets are identified for each of the above tasks (Figure 1;
Makoul 2001).
The skills described under 1, 2, 4, and 6 focus on enhancing
the subjective patient experience, and relate more to the
interpersonal interaction, which we have termed ‘‘patientcentered tasks.’’ Skills 3, 5, and 7 outline organizational tasks
necessary to structure a medical encounter and acquire or give
information, which we have terms ‘‘information or organization tasks.’’ There is considerable evidence that both categories
are essential for doctor–patient communication (Barry et al.
2000; Ward et al. 2003; Windish et al. 2005; Ruiz-Moral et al.
2006). Little et al. (2001), for example, showed that when
surveyed, patients equally valued both patient-centered tasks
(e.g. being listened to, having their concerns understood,
establishing a relationship, reaching agreement on plans) as
well as information or organization tasks (e.g. providing
information, clear explanations, suggestions for illness
prevention).
With respect to education and training, the literature
suggests that medical students and physicians alike tend to
excel at organization or information-based tasks, but struggle
with patient-centered tasks. Many studies have quantified the
high frequency with which physicians miss opportunities to
provide emotional support or empathy during clinical encounters (Levinson et al. 2000; Morse et al. 2008). Aspegren and
Lonberg-Madsen (2005) showed that medical students and
seasoned physicians alike were experts in content or information-based skills but lacked process and perceptual skills
related to building rapport and developing the doctor–patient
relationship.
Communication skills training has repeatedly been shown
to enhance patient-centered communication. For example,
Perera et al. (2009) showed that medical students who
received additional feedback on their communication
improved significantly in understanding the patient and
building the relationship. No improvement was noted with
respect to information/organization tasks like sharing information and closing the discussion. Back et al. (2011), found
that prior to communication skills training, oncology fellows
missed opportunities to respond to emotional cues, but this
was improved with an experiential workshop. Bylund et al.
(2010) showed that at baseline, physicians frequently used
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D. A. Baribeau et al.
organization skills, but were relatively weaker at patientcentered skills like negotiating an agenda, checking for
understanding or sharing in decision making. With training,
significant improvements were made in two patient-centered
tasks: negotiating the agenda and understanding the
patient’s perspective. Similarly, Butow et al. (2008), showed
that frequency of skill use was variable at baseline, but that
training increased the physicians’ ability to reach agreement
in decision making and elicit patient emotions.
It is unknown whether this pattern, in which the organizational aspects of communication are performed better than
patient-centered aspects, represents a basic communication
tendency, or alternatively whether it is the result of knowledge
gained through professional training. Furthermore, it is
unknown whether one first requires a knowledge base on the
structure of clinical interviewing in order to capitalize on training
focused on patient-centered communication. Determining
whether or not the same patterns as described in the preceding
paragraphs exist in a pre-clinical sample of students would help
address both of these issues, thereby yielding further insight into
the appropriate timing and strategies for communication skills
training at varying levels of experience.
In this study, we use a quasi-experimental, pre-test–posttest design to test which specific communication elements
described in the Kalamzoo consensus pose the greatest
difficulty to pre-clinical non-professional undergraduate students, and to what extent knowledge of these skills may be
differentially learned in an introductory communication skills
course. We demonstrate a way to map an OSVE scoring key
onto current consensus guidelines and then present multiple
videotaped scenarios to students that represented a variety of
professional contexts. We use a response form that requires
students to identify effective and ineffective aspects of the
skills demonstrated in the videos. To guard against the
possibility that any increase in scores could be attributed to
general maturation or learning derived from the pre-test, a pair
of pre-tests was used for a portion of the sample. Retention
of knowledge was assessed with a 4-month follow-up test for
the other half of the sample. Extrapolating from the literature,
we hypothesize that students will be overall more effective
at recognizing information or organization tasks. With training,
we anticipate that patient-centered task recognition should
improve, particularly with respect to understanding the
patient’s perspective and reaching agreement.
Methods
Part A: Design of the OSVE
Design of video vignettes. Five interactions between a health
care professional and client were scripted to contain 5 min
of dialogue. Each of these scenarios was written deliberately to
contain many elements of effective and ineffective communication skills based on the Kalamazoo consensus statement.
The videos were intended to be realistic, and were not focused
on a particular subset of skills. SPs were recruited from the
Standardized Patient Program at the Centre for SimulationBased Learning at the McMaster University Medical Centre.
e244
A total of five videos were filmed using SPs, and each was
cropped to a duration lasting from 4 to 5.5 min in length.
OSVE response forms. The dialogue in each video was
transcribed verbatim into a response form, adjacent to two
blank columns (Figure 2). Participants were instructed to
identify and evaluate the interviewer’s communication skills
by commenting in the blank columns adjacent to the area
in the script where they perceived communication skills to be
employed. The responses were requested in ‘‘free text’’ form,
in that the comments were not restricted to any particular
aspect of the dialogue. Participants recorded comments
on effective communication skills in column A, whereas
comments on ineffective communication skills or missed
opportunities to use communication skills were recorded
in column B.
Part B: Development of a criterion standard
Acquiring expert responses. It was important to determine
which communication skills were portrayed by the SPs in
the videos in an identifiable form and, therefore, could be
evaluated on the scoring key (criterion standard). To this end,
rather than relying solely on the scenario author’s opinion or
intention, five communication skills experts were recruited
to create a criterion standard. Each expert had at least 15 years of
experience teaching communication skills and was very familiar
with the Kalamazoo consensus statement. Experts followed a
testing regimen identical to that which would subsequently be
applied to the student participants (i.e., an initial viewing of a
video scenario followed by 9 min to complete the response form
and a second viewing). In one testing session, the experts were
instructed to identify and comment on communication skills
portrayed in all five video scenarios.
Interpreting expert responses. The Kalamazoo consensus
statement was used as a template for interpreting expert
responses. Numeric codes were assigned to the seven communication categories or (where possible) to each of the
24 more specific communication skills that reside within
specific categories for a total of 31 possible codes (Figure 1).
Carl Delottinville, Ilya Mukovozov, Thomas Sabljic, and
Danielle Baribeau then independently matched the expert
responses to the most appropriate items on the template.
Each author applied the template codes to expert responses
for all five video scenarios and for all five experts. Agreement
between authors with respect to the coding scheme was then
assessed. Using binomial probability theorem, it was determined that the probability of at least three out of four authors
agreeing on one of 31 possible codes by chance alone was
0.01%. Using this strict criterion for consensus resulted in the
inclusion of only expert responses that could be clearly
attributed to one communication category or skill.
Comparing responses between experts. The responses that
were similarly coded by at least three authors were then
compared across experts for each line of the dialogue. Where
two or more of the five experts identified the same specific task
or communication category in the same line range, the line
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Objective structured video exam
Figure 2. Sample OSVE response form. The students are instructed to describe the communication skills or tasks that were
effective (column A) or inneffective (column B), adjacent to the line number where these skills occur in the dialog.
range was marked and the response was retained as a
component of the criterion standard. This relatively liberal
criterion was adopted because, with roughly 100 lines of text
per case on average (range 80–182), two response columns
and 32 possible codes (the 31 codes in Figure 1 plus the
chance that a line of text would not be coded) the likelihood
that at least two experts would select the same line of dialogue
and assign the same code to that dialogue by chance alone
is only 0.03%. Figure 3 illustrates a sample portion of the
criterion standard for a single video.
The criterion standard. The protocol described in section B
generated five OSVE marking keys each containing between
26 and 36 scorable responses distributed between both
columns. Some skills were represented more frequently
than others. Table 1 demonstrates the number of times
each skill was portrayed in each video scenario and in
which column the skills were identified as per the criterion
standard.
Part C: Student population and testing
Figure 3. Sample OSVE marking scheme. The communciation skills or tasks and their line ranges, identified by a panel of
experts, are indicated on the marking scheme. The bracketed
number corresponds to the order of the responses and the
subsequent double-digit number indicates the code that
corresponds with the specific behaviors presented in Figure 1.
The student population. We recruited from a population of
87 non-professional undergraduate students enrolled in a third
year Communication Skills course for the 2007/2008 academic
year. Ethics approval was granted by McMaster University’s
Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Board. On agreeing
to participate in the study, students were randomly allocated
an anonymous participant number, thus blinding the authors
to the participant’s identity, semester of enrollment, and test
administration protocol.
e245
D. A. Baribeau et al.
Table 1. Frequency, type (according to Kalamazoo consensus) and quality of communication skill (A: effective vs. B: ineffective/missed) listed
in the criterion scoring sheet.
Column
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10. Builds and sustains a trusting relationship
20. Opens the discussion
30. Gathers information
40. Understands the interviewee’s perspective
50. Shares information
60. Reaches agreement
70. Provides closure
Total
Video A
Video B
Video C
Video D
Video E
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
10
1
3
7
2
3
2
28
3
2
1
1
0
0
1
8
5
1
1
1
2
0
0
10
6
0
0
5
2
3
1
17
4
1
7
4
0
1
0
17
4
0
0
6
0
0
1
11
7
1
1
2
1
1
0
13
4
0
0
4
0
3
2
13
5
0
2
2
5
0
0
14
6
0
1
4
0
2
1
14
Total
54
6
16
36
12
13
8
145
Figure 4. Study design. A cross-over study design permitted simultaneous testing for communication skills knowledge
acquisition, knowledge retention, as well as learning effects from repeated testing.
The communication skills course. The communication skills
course, as the educational intervention, consisted of 3 class
hours per week for 12 weeks. This course used an experiential
approach to communication skills training with SP interactions
lasting 2 h each week accompanied by immediate tutor and
group feedback. Students were also given an opportunity to
observe and reflect on their own interviews, which were video
recorded. The students completed weekly journal reflections
on their communication skills as well as two written projects
incorporating evidence-based literature specific to communication skills.
Testing protocol. Half of the students (n ¼ 45) were enrolled
in the semester 1 course (September to December), while the
other half (n ¼ 42) were enrolled in semester 2 (January to
April). Students in both semesters were requested to attend
three separate testing sessions, the first in September, the
second in December/January, and the third in April. Mean
scores were compared before and after the educational
intervention, to measure the effect of communication
skills training and to control for inter-student variability.
Additionally, semester 1 students were tested 4 months after
completing the course, to measure knowledge retention.
Semester 2 students were tested 4 months prior to, and
directly prior to the educational intervention, to measure the
learning effect derived from repeated OSVE participation.
As such, each semester of students was requested to attend
one testing session outside of allotted classroom time. See
Figure 4 for an illustration of the research design.
e246
Testing sessions. The sequence of video administration was
planned such that each student viewed three video scenarios
during each of the three testing sessions. During the second
and third testing sessions, they viewed two previously viewed
scenarios and one new scenario. The order of video administration varied by testing session, such that each student
viewed each video no more than twice, and each video was
represented across all testing sessions. As previously described
above, the students were tasked to identify and comment
on the effective use of communication skills portrayed by the
interviewer in column A, as well as areas of ineffective use of
communication skills or missed opportunities for communication skills in column B. A pilot testing session was conducted
with a sample group of student volunteers (n ¼ 4). From this,
it was determined that 9 min spaced between two video
viewings provided adequate time for students to complete the
OSVE response form for each video vignette. Viewing three
different videos and completing three response forms in this
way required a total testing time of approximately 1 h.
Marking student response forms. Danielle Baribeau, Thomas
Sabljic, and Ilya Mukovozov subsequently compared student
responses to those on the criterion standard developed from
expert responses. Where a student provided the same
response as an expert in the same column and line range,
one mark was allocated. Marks were not removed for incorrect
responses. During the marking of student responses, specific
communication skills were interpreted as dependent on the
Objective structured video exam
communication categories. Where a communication category
was considered a correct response on the criterion standard,
a student could receive a mark for commenting on a specific
skill within that category. This decision was made to avoid
being overly narrow in interpreting student-expert alignment,
and was consistently applied to all testing sessions.
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Part D: Analysis
Student responses were analyzed with respect to the percent
correct (i.e., the number of correct items noted by participants/
the number included in the answer key generated by the
expert panel), as well as the percent accuracy (number
of correct items noted by the participants/total number of
responses noted by participants). Percentage scores were used
as opposed to absolute scores given that each video scenario
contained a variable number of potentially correct items under
the different skill sub-domains. This avoided skewing the
relative contribution of student scores toward OSVE vignettes
with more items. It also enabled a ready comparison across
communication skill category sub-domains. The percent
correct score for each sub-domain was averaged across all
five videos. Mixed design analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
performed on this variable, treating term in which participants
received the educational intervention (Fall vs Winter) as a
between subjects factor and test administration (September,
January, or April) as a repeated measure. Planned comparison
t-tests were used to determine the source of any significant
effects. ANOVA was similarly used to determine which specific
aspects of communication skills students had the greatest
difficulty identifying.
Results
In total, 79 students (90.1% of all eligible participants)
contributed data to this study although the sample size
varied across administration (n ¼ 61, 69, and 39 for tests 1, 2,
and 3, respectively). A total of 27/79 students attended all three
testing sessions. Mean scores for students who completed all
three sessions were compared to those who completed only
one or two testing sessions. Pre-intervention scores were
slightly higher for students who attended all three testing
sessions with respect to percent correct (18.6% vs 15.3%,
p ¼ 0.02), but were not significantly different with respect to
percent accuracy (39.1% vs 37.5%, p ¼ 0.56) or with respect
to either measure post-intervention ( percent accuracy 51.3
vs 54.6, p ¼ 0.27, percent correct ¼ 28.5 vs 31.2, p ¼ 0.08).
Authors had a high level of agreement with respect to
scoring the student responses. The inter-rater reliability calculations with respect to scoring agreement for each video
scenario were: Scenarios A ¼ 0.95; B ¼ 0.95; C ¼ 0.90; D ¼ 0.92;
and E ¼ 0.95.
Both percent accuracy and percent correct scores increased
following the communication skills training. The total number
of responses provided by each student also increased. Overall
mean percent correct scores by term and testing session are
illustrated in Figure 5. For percent accuracy, Term 1 mean
scores increased from 39.2% to 51.3% after the intervention.
Term 2 percent accuracy mean scores increased from 36.4%
Figure 5. Student scores on the OSVE. T1 (Term 1): Results
shown before and after taking a communication skills course,
as well as when tested for retention after 4 months. T2 (Term 2):
Results shown from repeated pre-intervention testing, as well as
before and after taking a communication skills course.
to 55.8%. The total number of given responses increased from
a mean of 12.7 (T1) and 12.9 (T2) to 17.2 (T1) and 15.2 (T2).
A mixed design ANOVA performed on the percent correct
scores revealed no main effect of semester (F 5 1, p 4 0.4),
a significant effect of session (F ¼ 11.1, p 5 0.001) and a
semester session interaction that bordered on significance
(F ¼ 2.8, p 5 0.08). Planned post hoc comparisons revealed
significant differences in the places that would be expected
given the above description: In semester 1 students, pre-test
scores were significantly lower than post-test scores (t ¼ 5.6,
p 5 0.001) and post-test scores did not differ from retention
scores (t ¼ 0.9, p 4 0.3). In semester 2 students, both pre-test
scores were significantly lower than post-test scores (t ¼ 4.6
and 5.8, p 5 0.001).
To flesh out which aspects of communication skills gave
students the greatest difficulty, sub-scores were created for
both the ‘‘effectively used’’ items from the answer key and the
‘‘missed opportunity/ineffective’’ items as well as for each
of the sub-domains included in the Kalamazoo consensus
statement (Figure 1). ANOVA revealed that students were
significantly better at correctly identifying aspects of communication skills that were effectively used by individuals in the
OSVE videos (mean ¼ 24.2% correct, 95% CI ¼ 22.3–26.1%)
relative to identifying missed opportunities or ineffective
communication (mean ¼ 18.6% correct, 95% CI ¼ 17.0–20.1%;
F ¼ 31.8, p 5 0.001). The correlation between percent correct
on ‘‘effectively used’’ items and ‘‘missed opportunity/ineffective’’ items was r ¼ 0.36, p 5 0.01.
With respect to the Kalamazoo sub-domains, ANOVA
similarly revealed that statistically meaningful differences
exist regarding students’ capacity to identify different aspects
of communication skills. A main effect of sub-domain was
observed (F ¼ 17.5, p 5 0.001) with mean percent correct
ranging from a low of 9.6% (95% CI ¼ 7.9–11.3%) for the
‘‘Reaches Agreement’’ sub-domain and a high of 29.6% (95%
CI ¼ 25.4–33.9%) for the ‘‘Shares Information’’ sub-domain.
Table 2 illustrates the mean percent correct for each of the
Kalamazoo consensus statement sub-domains along with a
break-down of these scores pre- vs post-test indicating the
extent to which students’ knowledge in each sub-domain
increased as a result of the learning enabled by the educational
intervention. In four of the seven domains, statistically
e247
D. A. Baribeau et al.
Table 2. Percent correct as a function of Kalamazoo consensus statement sub-scores.
Skill sub-type
10.
20.
30.
40.
50.
60.
70.
Builds and sustains a trusting relationship
Opens the discussion
Gathers information
Understands the interviewee’s perspective
Shares information
Reaches agreement
Provides closure
Mean percent correct across all
testing session and all videos
(95% confidence interval)
17.7%
20.6%
23.4%
23.7%
29.6%
9.6%
27.6%
(16.0–19.5)
(16.5–24.8)
(19.6–27.4)
(21.5–25.9)
(25.4–33.9)
(7.9–11.4)
(23.0–32.2)
Pre-test mean
percent correct
Post-test mean
percent correct
p-Value comparing
pre-test to post-test
21.4
24.0
14.1
16.9
26.0
5.8
24.0
22.1
16.0
36.3
33.0
30.1
18.2
40.0
0.75
0.24
50.01
50.001
0.55
50.001
50.05
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Notes: The overall mean percent correct is based on total set of data collected whereas the pre-test and post-test means are calculated based on only those
individuals who contributed data before and after the educational intervention.
significant gains in performance were achieved: ‘‘Gathers
Information,’’ ‘‘Understands the Interviewee’s Perspective,’’
‘‘Reaches Agreement,’’ and ‘‘Provides Closure.’’ Cronbach’s
alpha examining the consistency with which sub-domain
scores differentiate between candidates was found to be 0.54.
Discussion
In this study, we designed and tested a novel OSVE response
form and marking protocol, based on consensus guidelines,
to assess knowledge of communication skills. The ‘‘free text’’
design of the response form encouraged students to identify,
qualify, and comment on the communication skills they
perceived in each video scenario. This approach varies from
that which has been reported in other OSVE testing protocols,
and represents a method of accommodating the subjective
nature of clinical interactions.
The development of the criterion standard using expert
consensus revealed that experts were more likely to identify
communication skills related to the patient experience of the
interpersonal interaction (i.e., building the relationship and
understanding the patient’s perspective; Table 1). The preprofessional students included in this sample, in contrast, were
more likely to identify aspects of communication skills that
corresponded with organizational tasks (i.e., sharing information and providing closure; Table 2). This is in line with what
has been reported in the literature, that health care students
and professionals who receive additional training are more
likely to employ patient-centered communication skills.
That said, training of these relative novices via an experiential communication skills course led to improvement in four
out of seven sub-domains, including patient-centered tasks
and concrete/organizational tasks. Previous studies have
shown improvement primarily in the patient-centered subdomains. We hypothesize that this difference may relate to the
nature of the non-professional undergraduate student population, whom had no prior exposure to either the structure or
the skills required for clinical interviewing. As a result, training
permitted not only development of patient-centered skills,
but also a basic introduction to the structure and format of a
clinical encounter.
Students were relatively better at identifying communication skills that were correctly demonstrated in a video, and
e248
relatively weaker at identifying missed opportunities or generating ideas on how the communication skills demonstrated
could be improved. These results, in combination, suggest that
pre-clinical training in communication should focus on the
patient-centered communication skills, such as relationship
building, understanding the patient’s perspective and reaching
agreement. Training should be specifically aimed at helping
students to identify common mistakes and develop ways to
improve the interaction.
It is important to note that the communication skills course
was not built around the consensus guidelines or the OSVE
scenarios used. Students acquired their knowledge through
experiential learning, journal reflections, using simulated
patients, peer feedback, and by exploring the literature.
As such, we consider the results to be reasonably representative of what can be expected of the broader population
of pre-clinical students rather than being the specific result
of this particular communication skills course. We specify
‘‘pre-clinical’’ because while a high proportion of students
in the Bachelor of Health Sciences Program at McMaster
University enter medical school upon graduation, this
specific course involved a non-professional undergraduate
population meaning that the students did not have clinical
knowledge to incorporate into their communication skills
training.
Unfortunately, student participation rates for testing
sessions held outside of class time were relatively low,
creating a potential selection bias toward more dedicated or
interested students. That being said, mean scores for
students who completed all three sessions were for the
most part not significantly different from those who
completed only one or two testing sessions. Further, our
data suggest that repeated OSVE administration or maturation throughout the academic year did not in itself improve
student knowledge as a pair of pre-tests revealed similar
performance as did the post-test vs retention comparison.
Further work is required to determine whether or not this
OSVE scoring technique could be used to enable tailoring of
feedback to individual students or to identify those in need
of remediation.
Of note, the students achieved relatively low mean percent
correct scores, both before and after the study intervention.
The low scores may be attributable to the protocol used to
generate the criterion standard. Five experts contributed to the
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For personal use only.
Objective structured video exam
marking key, but consensus was only required between two
experts on a particular item for it to be included in the criterion
standard. As a result, each individual expert contributed only
20% of the criterion standard, approximating the percent
correct scores achieved by students. A more stringent protocol
regarding expert consensus would be expected to raise
the mean percent correct by limiting the answer key to those
items that are more absolutely observable. This was not done
in the context of this study as the relative accuracy across
sub-domain was of dominant interest. For those looking
to reproduce this type of evaluation for educational purposes, an open discussion among educators during the
generation of the marking scheme would be more straightforward and likely appropriate for nonresearch-based
endeavors.
A final limitation of the study arises from lack of clarity
regarding the significance of communication skills knowledge.
There is limited data available to enable confident claims that
greater knowledge of communication portrayed on OSVEs is
associated with performance (Humphris 2002). More research
is needed to determine if training and assessment of communication skills knowledge translates to performance in clinical
encounters.
Conclusions
An OSVE based on consensus guidelines with respect to
clinical communication was capable of tracking increases
in student knowledge of communication skills following an
educational intervention. The students’ ability to identify
communication skills varied depending on the skill sub-type.
Students were better at identifying information or organizationbased tasks such as sharing information and closing the
discussion. They were weaker at recognizing patient-centered
tasks such as building the relationship and reaching agreement
with the patient. Communication skills training resulted in
improved recognition of some but not all types of communication skills. Educators in the field of clinical communication
may find it useful to evaluate knowledge acquisition of specific
communication skill sub-types using OSVEs to enable tailoring
of feedback and further curriculum development to the
specific deficiencies observed. Pre-clinical training in communication should focus on recognizing opportunities to improve
communication skills that enhance the subjective patient
experience.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Jennifer Gallé, Osama Khan, and Jayant
Ramakrishna for their preliminary work on this project.
Gratitude is extended to the Bachelor of Health Sciences
Program at McMaster University for providing funding and
technical support. This research was conducted at McMaster
University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no declarations
of interest.
Notes on contributors
DANIELLE A. BARIBEAU, BHSc, is a medical student at the University
of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She completed a Bachelor’s degree in Health
Sciences in 2008 at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
ILYA MUKOVOZOV, MSc, is a student in the MD/PhD Program at the
University of Toronto, enrolled in the Institute of Medical Science and
working as a research associate in the Department of Cell Biology at the
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada.
THOMAS SABLJIC, MSc, is a doctoral student in the Medical Sciences
Program at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. He completed a
Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences at McMaster University in 2008.
KEVIN W. EVA, PhD, is a senior scientist in the Centre for Health Education
Scholarship, associate professor and director of Educational Research and
Scholarship in the Department of Medicine at the University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
CARL B. DELOTTINVILLE, MSW, is an instructor in the Honours Bachelor
of Health Sciences Program and an associate clinical professor in the
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at McMaster
University, Hamilton, Canada.
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