Improving Student Experiences of the University of Arizona’s Nurse Practitioner Virtual Objective Structured Clinical Examinations

Background: Universities are providing education via online platforms, but this creates uncertainties about how to evaluate students in healthcare professions. Objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs) have been a tool to evaluate healthcare professionals for decades. The University of Arizona (UA) has implemented virtual OSCEs to evaluate nurse practitioner (NP) students. Objective: The purpose was to evaluate experiences with virtual OSCEs for NP students at UA and make changes in this process to improve student experiences. Design: One-group interview followed by a second group post-test quality improvement project. Setting: Interviews were conducted via an online Zoom meeting platform. Faculty and students also utilized Zoom for OSCE. Standardized patients participated in the UA simulation lab. Participants: Ten NP students from the 2016 FNP cohort. A second group of seven NP students from the 2017 FNP cohort. Measurements: Ten NP students were interviewed with open response questions developed by the projector director, based on the review of a previous survey. A second group of seven students completed a virtual OSCE, with changes made from interview responses, and a post survey of Likert scale questions and free responses. Results: Themes of the interview included, providing a grading rubric before the virtual OSCE, ensuring that faculty/standardized patients provided feedback, standardized faculty expectations, and emphasizing pertinent clinical skills. In the post survey, students (100%) reported that they ‘somewhat agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ with feedback received from faculty/standardized patients, expectations were managed by receiving the rubric beforehand, and that the virtual OSCE process was a “good educational experience.” Conclusion: The results suggest that after making changes to the current virtual OSCE, students had an improved experience.

Name thesis:degree_name

D.N.P.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate College

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Arizona.

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Tatton, Jordan T.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Flamm, Kristie

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Knight, Elizabeth
• Prettyman, Allen

• nursing
• OSCE
• virtual

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10150/632993

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/632993