Background: Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) have been used globally in medical education and touted as the "gold standard" for competence-based assessments. However, the value of OSCEs in nursing education has not been extensively evaluated.
Purposes: This review aims to report the global trends in nursing OSCEs; evaluate their validity, reliability, acceptability, and costs; and present the characteristics of validated nursing OSCEs.
Methods: This is a scoping review involving a systematic search in 7 electronic databases.
Results: A total of 204 studies, published between 1982 and 2018, were included in the review. We found that nursing OSCEs were extensively used across various nursing specialties in 33 countries and confirmed their validity, reliability, and acceptability in nursing education.
Conclusions: This review confirms the value of OSCEs in nursing education and presents the underlying characteristics of validated nursing OSCE designs.
Keywords: clinical competence; educational measurement; nursing education; objective structured clinical examination.