ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Humanities and Social Sciences
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1618069
This article is part of the Research TopicVeterinary teaching in 2025: where we are and where we expect to goView all 17 articles
Implementation of the first Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) in Veterinary Medicine in Spain: a two-year experimental study
Provisionally accepted
Lara CarrascoGema Gonzalez
Maria UtrillaLaura RicoAntonio MagroNatividad Perez-Villalobos
Bárbara Martin-Maldonado*- European University of Madrid, Villaviciosa de Odón, Spain
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In Veterinary Medicine, traditional methods for evaluating technical skills, such as multiple-choice exams or short questions, have limitations in assessing practical competencies. The Objective Structured Clinical Practical Examination (OSPE) has been successfully implemented in other Health Sciences degrees to improve objectivity and minimize bias in skill evaluation. This study aimed to assess the outcomes of implementing OSPE for evaluating Veterinary students' technical skills and to analyze students' perceptions and satisfaction with the method.Over two academic years, OSPE was introduced as an evaluation tool for Veterinary students, featuring four stations: Clinical Examination, Blood Sample Extraction, Anesthesia, and Surgery. Student performance was recorded, and their perceptions were gathered through voluntary surveys.Descriptive statistics were applied to analyze the exam results and survey responses.A total of 144 students participated, with 93.8% passing the OSPE on their first attempt. Among the stations, the Surgery station received the highest scores both in student performance and survey feedback. Overall, 96% of students considered OSPE a positive evaluation method, and 92.7% acknowledged its effectiveness in assessing practical skills.The OSPE has significantly improved the evaluation of practical skills in Veterinary Medicine, offering an objective and structured approach that enhances learning strategies. Students demonstrated high satisfaction with the method, which also resulted in favorable exam outcomes.
Keywords: Skills assessment, Practical evaluation, students' perception, educational improvements, exam methodology, Veterinary Degree
Received: 25 Apr 2025; Accepted: 17 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Carrasco, Gonzalez, Utrilla, Rico, Magro, Perez-Villalobos and Martin-Maldonado. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bárbara Martin-Maldonado, European University of Madrid, Villaviciosa de Odón, Spain
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