[Quality assurance of assessments using the example of the OSCE examination format: experiences of the Medical School of Heidelberg University].

Quality management of assessment in medical education plays a key role in Germany--owing to, among other factors, the new medical licensing regulations ("Approbationsordnung"). OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) is a widespread tool to assess clinical competencies. However, the quality of OSCE in terms of reliability as a criterion of a good test is highly debated in the current literature. To improve the reliability of the OSCE three accompanying measures have been implemented at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Heidelberg since the summer of 2006: 1. the application of a checklist for pre- and post-reviews of OSCEs, 2. a specific training of OSCE examiners, 3. an advanced psychometric OSCE test report giving feedback to the item developer. The reliability of the Internal Medicine OSCE at the University of Heidelberg has increased since. Currently Cronbach's alpha of the final OSCE in the summer of 2007 was 0.829.