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A pilot study of the mental workload of objective structured clinical examination examiners
Author(s) -
Byrne Aidan,
Tweed Nathan,
Halligan Claire
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/medu.12387
Subject(s) - workload , formative assessment , context (archaeology) , reliability (semiconductor) , task (project management) , applied psychology , objective structured clinical examination , rating scale , validity , psychology , medicine , computer science , medical education , psychometrics , clinical psychology , engineering , mathematics education , paleontology , developmental psychology , power (physics) , physics , systems engineering , quantum mechanics , biology , operating system
Context Mental workload is a concept used in many industries to investigate operator performance, but it has only recently been used in the educational setting. It has been suggested that excessive mental workload in assessors may impair the validity of objective structured clinical examination ( OSCE )‐type assessments. Objectives This study aimed to establish the feasibility of measuring the mental workload of examiners during an OSCE assessment and to establish methodologies and baseline values to guide future study design. Methods Two previously validated methods of measuring mental workload, the NASA –Task Load Index rating scale and use of a secondary task (response to a prompt from a vibrotactile device), were used to measure the workload of 10 subjects during a formative OSCE . Trainee anaesthetists ( n = 24) working in an operating theatre were used as a control group. Results The mental workload of examiners exceeded that of controls on both measures. Although there was marked inter‐subject variability, reliability between stations for individual examiners was robust (α = 0.922). Conclusions These data suggest that mental workload is excessive in OSCE examiners. Further studies are required to measure the effect of changes in assessment design and examiner training.