How the introduction of OSCEs has affected the time students spend studying: results of a nationwide study

BMC Medical Education

Table 2 Reported studying time for OSCEs and MCQ tests by medical school affiliation

Medical school	n ^b	Time spent (h) for an OSCE^a	Time spent (h) for an MCQ test^a	p ^c
Medical school	n ^b	Mean	Mean	p ^c
VI	51	51.8	87.7	< 0.01
VII	38	41.6	76.5	< 0.01
VIII	38	50.6	109.5	< 0.01
X	108	89.1	146.2	< 0.01
XI	34	51.7	92.2	< 0.01
XII	32	54.3	120.6	< 0.01
XIV	72	59.9	82.0	< 0.01
XVI	40	52.5	105.8	< 0.01
XXXI	55	46.4	80.0	< 0.01
II	11	54.5	103.3	0.01
III	17	57.2	84.7	0.01
XXII	8	85.0	156.0	0.02
XXIII	18	44.1	95.6	0.02
XXIV	38	111.8	139.8	0.02
XXXII	50	47.9	63.7	0.04
IX	33	67.9	89.7	0.06
XXX	25	54.2	70.4	0.06
V	16	45.5	59.5	0.07
I	18	53.8	79.8	0.08
XXV	6	60.0	89.3	0.08
XXI	51	56.9	69.6	0.09
XXVIII	54	61.3	70.8	0.20
IV	57	78.3	89.2	0.22
XIII	15	70.9	92.8	0.32
XX	4	62.0	46.0	0.47
XXVI	31	77.2	85.5	0.47
XIX	6	121.3	149.3	0.48
XV	11	49.5	56.0	0.57
XXIX	5	67.2	77.6	0.60
XXVII	4	60.0	52.0	0.64
XVII	95	99.3	98.7	0.90
XVIII	2	64.0	60.0	0.91

^aAverage number of hours (h) students reported to study in preparation for a single summative in-house OSCE or MCQ test
^bNumber of responses
^cA paired t-test was used

ISSN: 1472-6920