The mini clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) in a pre-registration osteopathy program: exploring aspects of its validity

Workplace-based assessment is commonplace, particularly in medicine. These assessments typically involve the assessment of a student conducting a consultation, or part thereof, on a real patient in an authentic clinical practice setting. In disciplines such as medicine substantial work has been directed towards the evaluation of the processes and tools used to perform these assessments and understand their educational impact. At present, there is little literature on the tools used for workplace-based assessment in osteopathy yet they form a picture of the student's capability. The current study presents data from a new workplace-based assessment tool for osteopathy, the mini Clinical Examination (mini-CEX) and is used to inform the implementation of the mini-CEX more broadly. Data presented here suggest the mini-CEX in this cohort is feasible, efficient, acceptable to stakeholders, internally consistent, and can differentiate between students at different stages of an osteopathic teaching program. Further research into the use of the mini-CEX in osteopathy is required, particularly focusing on educational impact, the reliability of the tool and its generalisability to clinical learning environments in other osteopathy teaching institutions.