Students' perceptions of practice assessment in the skills laboratory: an evaluation study of OSCAs with immediate feedback.

Assessment of clinical skills is fundamental to undergraduate nursing programmes. However, enabling assessment to be a good learning experience as well is a challenge to nurse educators. The study presented here presents the change from using an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) for summative assessment (with feedback given to students after results had gone to the examination board--6 weeks after the OSCE) to one with immediate feedback. Because the previous OSCEs were universally disliked by students, for reasons that included absence of immediate feedback, in making this change the university re-branded the OSCE as an objective structured clinical assessment (OSCA) with immediate feedback provided to students. A survey was undertaken to measure student engagement with the OSCA, its value and impact, and its sustainability from the students' perspectives. There is little in the literature about student engagement with OSCEs and sustainability. Findings show that the OSCA with immediate feedback was perceived positively by students, was valued with regard to a number of factors, had a positively impact on student learning and confidence and was felt to be a form of assessment that this university should continue to use.