Comparison of peer, self, and faculty objective structured clinical examination evaluations in a PharmD nonprescription therapeutics course

Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE) are a valuable assessment within healthcare education, as they provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate clinical competency, but can be resource intensive to provide faculty graders. The purpose of this study was to determine how overall OSCE scores compared between faculty, peer, and self-evaluations within a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) curriculum. This study was conducted during the required nonprescription therapeutics course. Seventy-seven first-year PharmD students were included in the study, with 6 faculty members grading 10–15 students each. Students were evaluated by 3 graders: self, peer, and faculty. All evaluators utilized the same rubric. The primary endpoint of the study was to compare the overall scores between groups. Secondary endpoints included interrater reliability and quantification of feedback type based on the evaluator group. The maximum possible score for the OSCE was 50 points; the mean scores for self, peer, and faculty evaluations were 43.3, 43.5, and 41.7 points, respectively. No statistically significant difference was found between the self and peer raters. However, statistical significance was found in the comparison of self versus faculty (p = 0.005) and in peer versus faculty (p