A Study to Test the Validity and Reliability of an Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills in Pelvic Examination

Physical examination of the pelvis is an important core skill that medical students need to acquire. However, due to its intimate nature some students are graduating unable to perform competent pelvic examinations. At present, evaluation of the medical students competence at pelvic examination is done by subjective faculty assessment. This assessment is typically performed at the end of the teaching block and is based on the assessors' recollection of the students' performance. This kind of assessment has been shown to have poor validity and reliability. This is in contrast to objective structured assessments of technical skill (OSATS), which use task specific and global rating scales and have been used to evaluate a wide range of clinical and surgical skills. However, no studies to date have evaluated an assessment tool for pelvic examination. In this study the investigators aim to determine the validity and reliability of an OSATS for pelvic examination. In addition, the investigators aim to identify factors that influence the scores in OSATS.