Perceptions of First and Second Year Medical Students to Improve Structured Viva Voce as an Assessment Tool

Objective: To determine the perceptions of 1st and 2nd year MBBS Students about structured Viva Voce Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted at Shalamar Medical and Dental College Lahore, on 92 students. Duration of study was from July to December 2018. A questionnaire (based on 5 points Likert scale) was generated in Google forms and link was shared with the participants. The analysis was done by using SPSS version 21, frequencies and percentages were calculated, and Chi-Square Test was applied. Results: Out of total 92 students, 32% belonged to the 1st and 68% to 2nd year MBBS. Majority of the 2nd year students (50.8%) showed their satisfaction regarding fairness and coverage of wide range of critical areas by Viva Voce as compared to the 1st year students. Greater percentage of students from both years consider that viva voce covered wide range of critical areas and were satisfied with level of difficulty and logical sequencing of viva voce questions. More than half of the participants from both classes consider it a valid assessment tool. Majority of 1st (65%) and 2nd year (63.1%) students thought that this tool of assessment highlighted their weaknesses and significantly higher number of 2nd year students consider that viva can highlight their strengths regarding the topic. Conclusion: Majority of students from both years showed their satisfaction regarding various aspects of Viva Voce. However, significantly greater number of 2nd year students were satisfied with the capability of Viva Voce in highlighting their strengths as compared to 1st year students.