Faculties’ feedback on powerpoint based spotter examination for first year medical students

Practical examination in Biochemistry involves spotters requiring rotation of students through ten stations in batches. As the number of students is large, it adds more difficulty in conducting such examination within the given time frame. Moreover, some of the stations require the use of an instrument or reagents which have to be arranged with the help of technical staff. So, to find a feasible, acceptable and valid tool for conduction such examinations, a pool of questions in micro soft (MS) - power point format based on the specification table and learning objectives was prepared. During periodic internal evaluations, these slides were used to orient the students for such examination. During university examinations, these questions were then administered to the entire batch of students simultaneously. A feedback regarding the same was taken from the faculty after the test using a questtionnaire with 5 point Likert’s scale. All faculty (100%) felt that this method overcomes the most of the needs required in conventional spotter examinations like laboratory infrastructure, student rotations between stations, reagents, preparation time, staff- technician coordination etc. So, power point based spotter examination can be an efficient and feasible tool for conducting such examinations for large number of students.