Feedback Credibility in a Formative Postgraduate Objective Structured Clinical Examination: Effects of Examiner Type

• Published in: Journal of graduate medical education 2018-04, Vol.10 (2), p.185-191
• Main Authors: Stroud, Lynfa, Sibbald, Matthew, Richardson, Denyse, McDonald-Blumer, Heather, Cavalcanti, Rodrigo B
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Clinical Competence; Communication; Education, Medical, Graduate - organization & administration; Educational Measurement - methods; Feedback; Female; Humans; Internship and Residency; Male; Original Research
• ISSN: 1949-8349; 1949-8357
• DOI: 10.4300/JGME-D-17-00578.1

Resident perspectives on feedback are key determinants of its acceptance and effectiveness, and provider credibility is a critical element in perspective formation. It is unclear what factors influence a resident's judgment of feedback credibility. We examined how residents perceive the credibility of feedback providers during a formative objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in 2 ways: (1) ratings of faculty examiners compared with standardized patient (SP) examiners, and (2) ratings of faculty examiners based on alignment of expertise and station content. During a formative OSCE, internal medicine residents were randomized to receive immediate feedback from either faculty examiners or SP examiners on communication stations, and at least 1 specialty congruent and either 1 specialty incongruent or general internist faculty examiner for clinical stations. Residents rated perceived credibility of feedback providers on a 7-point scale. Results were analyzed with proportional odds models for ordinal credibility ratings. A total of 192 of 203 residents (95%), 72 faculty, and 10 SPs participated. For communication stations, odds of high credibility ratings were significantly lower for SP than for faculty examiners (odds ratio [OR] = 0.28,